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INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE 

MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

SYSTEM   , 

A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


BT 
GEORGE  H.   MARTIN,  A.M. 

SUPERVISOR  OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS,  BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS 


NEW    YORK 
D.    APPLETON   AND    COMPANY 

1901 


UA 


COPTRIGHT,   1894, 

By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


Electkotyped  and  Printed 

AT  THE  APPLETON  PrESS,  U.  S.  A. 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 


By  common  consent  the  teachers  of  the  United 
States  would  choose  Massachusetts  as  the  State 
possessing  the  most  interesting  educational  his- 
tory. Even  though  each  teacher  should  express 
his  first  preference  for  his  own  State,  there  would 
be  found  great  unanimity  in  the  second  choice. 

Upon  close  examination  it  appears  to  the  stu- 
dent of  education  that  each  State  has  something 
unique,  some  phase  of  development  better  repre- 
sented than  can  be  found  elsewhere.  In  the  his- 
tory of  education,  as  in  that  of  other  provinces, 
it  is  not  merely  the  invention  of  good  methods 
that  profits  us,  but  the  discovery  of  the  bad  ef- 
fects that  follow  from  the  use  of  methods  not 
good.  The  demonstration  of  the  evils  incident 
to  a  certain  course  of  study  or  practice  in  school 
administration  is  a  permanent  contribution  to 
the  science  of  pedagogy.  All  methods  and  appli- 
ances which  are  accounted  good  have,  it  is  true, 
their  limits,  beyond  which  they  are  useless,  if  not 

V 


1 


vi  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

pernicious.  From  this  it  is  evident  that  each 
State  system  of  education  possesses  points  of  in- 
terest and  lessons  in  management  valuable  either 
as  models  for  guidance  or  negatively  as  experi- 
ments to  be  avoided. 

The  claims  of  the  history  of  education  in  Mas- 
sachusetts to  pre-eminent  interest  are  based  on 
the  fact  that  it  offers  the  completest  exhibition 
of  the  Puritan  ideal  of  education  that  is  to  be 
found.  It  shows  it  in  all  its  phases  of  evolution, 
and  makes  evident  both  its  strength  and  its  weak- 
ness. The  experience  of  Massachusetts  has  aided 
all  the  other  colonies  settled  by  Puritans  to  out- 
grow the  earlier  and  more  defective  stages  of 
Puritan  development.  The  experience  of  "the 
^  Bay  State  ^^  has  thus  been  vicarious^  serving  not 
\  only  for  itself  but  in  a  measure  for  all  the  other 
New  England  States,  and  also  for  the  new  com- 
munities in  the  West,  settled  in  great  part  by 
emigrants  from  New  England.  There  is  scarcely 
a  feature  of  school  instruction  or  school  disci- 
pline and  management  that  has  not  been  differen- 
tiated in  Massachusetts  at  some  epoch  within  the 
two  hundred  years  of  its  history.  The  adoption 
of  a  course  of  study  and  the  fixing  of  the  amount 
of  instruction  to  be  given  in  each  branch  and  the 
time  when  it  is  best  to  begin  it ;  the  relative 
position  of  the  disciplinary  and  the  information 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  vii 

studies;  the  use  and  disuse  of  corporal  punish- 
ment; the  education  of  girls;  written  examina- 
tions ;  the  grading  of  schools ;  'the  relation  of 
principal  and  assistant  teachers ;  professional  in- 
struction in  normal  schools;  religious  instruc- 
tion; unsectarian  moral  instruction  and  secular 
instruction;  theocratic  or  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment and  purely  secular  control,  or  the  union 
and  separation  of  Church  and  State ;  government 
by  centralized  power  and  then  by  distribution  of 
power  to  districts,  realizing  the  extreme  of  local 
self-government,  and  then  the  recovery  of  central 
authority ;  public  high  schools  and  private  acad- 
emies ;  co-education  and  separate  education  of 
the  sexes;  educational  support  by  tuition  fees> 
rate  bills,  general  taxation,  and  local  taxation; 
general  and  local  supervision  by  committees  and 
by  experts ;  educational  associations  and  teach- 
ers' institutes;  large  and  small  school  buildings 
and  their  division  into  rooms,  their  heating,  ven- 
tilation, and  lighting ;  evening  schools,  kinder- 
gartens, industrial  art  instruction,  free  text- 
books— in  fact,  almost  all  educational  problems 
have  been  agitated  at  one  time  or  another  in 
Massachusetts. 

It  has  often  happened  that  some  one  feature 
or  another  has  been  taken  up  by  a  neighboring 
State  and  more  perfectly  developed  than  in  Mas- 


viii  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

sachusetts ;  or  in  the  inception  of  some  important 
movement  other  States  have  anticipated  Massa- 
chusetts. But  no  other  State  has,  on  the  whole, 
so  rich  and  profitable  an  experience. 

In  studying  the  records  of  this  State  one  is 
impressed  by  the  fact  that  every  new  movement 
has  run  the  gantlet  of  fierce  and  bitter  opposition 
before  adoption.  The  ability  of  the  conservative 
party  has  always  been  conspicuous,  and  the 
friends  of  the  new  measure  have  been  forced  to 
exert  all  their  strength,  and  to  eliminate  one  after 
another  the  objectionable  features  discovered  in 
advance  by  their  enemies.  To  this  fact  is  due 
the  success  of  so  many  of  the  reforms  and  im- 
provements that  have  proceeded  from  this  State. 
The  fire  of  criticism  has  purified  the  gold  from 
the  dross  in  a  large  measure  already  before  the 
stage  of  practical  experiment  has  begun.  In  re- 
viewing this  long  record  of  bitter  quarrels  over 
new  measures  that  have  now  become  old  and 
venerable  because  of  their  good  results  in  all 
parts  of  the  nation,  we  are  apt  to  become  impa- 
tient and  blame  too  severely  the  conservative 
party  in  Massachusetts.  We  forget  that  the  op- 
position helped  to  perfect  the  theory  of  the  re- 
form, and  did  much  to  make  it  a  real  advance 
instead  of  a  mere  change  from  one  imperfect 
method  to  another.     Even  at  best,  educational 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  ix 

changes  are  often  only  changes  of  fashion,  the 
swing  of  the  pendulum  from  one  extreme  to 
another,  and  sure  to  need  correction  by  a  fresh 
reaction.  Again,  it  is  patent  in  Massachusetts 
history  that  the  defects  of  old  methods  were  in 
great  part  remedied  by  the  good  sense  and  skill 
of  many  highly  cultured  teachers  who  still  prac- 
ticed them,  and  hence  the  wholesale  denunciation 
of  the  old  methods  was  felt  to  be  unjust.  The 
best  teachers  resented  the  attack  on  their  methods. 
It  seemed  unfair,  because  it  charged  against  the 
method  all  the  mistakes  committed  by  inexperi- 
ence and  stupidity,  and  because,  too,  it  claimed 
more  for  the  new  device  than  could  be  realized. 
The  old  was  condemned  for  its  poor  results  in  the 
hands  of  the  most  incompetent,  while  the  new 
was  commended  as  an  ideal,  without  considering 
what  it  would  become  in  the  hands  of  unfaithful 
teachers. 

It  is  well  said  by  the  author,  Mr.  Martin,  that 
the  Puritan  emigration  to  New  England  was  a 
part  of  a  large  movement  which  had  begun  with 
the  revival  of  learning  in  western  Europe,  and 
which  has  not  yet  ceased,  but  seems  destined  to 
include  in  its  scope  the  whole  human  race.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  modern  history  has  exhibited 
external  and  internal  reactions  in  a  progressive 
series.    There  was  an  external  reaction  against 


X  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

the  East,  in  the  form  of  crusades,  from  the  elev- 
enth century  on.  But  contemporaneous  with  this 
there  went  on  an  internal  reaction  in  the  form  of 
Scholastic  philosophy  against  the  Moslem  think- 
ers, who  interpreted  Aristotle  in  such  a  way  as 
to  deny  individual  immortality  to  the  soul ;  Scho- 
lasticism refuted  such  pantheism  in  its  systems 
of  theology.  This  was  a  philosophical  crusade. 
There  was  another  outward  reaction  in  the  epoch 
of  discovery  and  colonization  of  the  New  World, 
and  this  was  accompanied  by  an  internal  reac- 
tion known  as  the  Protestant  Reformation.  It 
has  been  succeeded  by  an  era  of  revolutions — 
external  reactions  against  centralized  authority 
in  political  governments,  and  internal .  reactions 
in  favor  of  science  and  the  emancipation  from 
spiritual  authority  in  its  various  forms.  The 
Puritan  colonization  belongs  to  the  second  of 
these  movements,  and  the  third  movement  is  in 
process  now,  and  to  it  is  chargeable  most  of  the 
changes  in  Massachusetts  schools  within  the 
present  century. 

Here  we  see  the  significance  of  the  apparent 
^     retrogression  of  education  in  Massachusetts  from 
1789  to  1839,  a  period  of  fifty  years,  marked  by 
* '  the  increase  of  local  self-government  and  the  de- 
crease of  central  authority.     The  central  power 
had  been  largely  theocratic  or  ecclesiastical  at 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  xi 

the  beginning.  The  reaction  against  ecclesias- 
tical control  went  too  far  in  the  direction  of  in- 
dividualism. The  farthest  swing  of  the  pendu- 
lum in  this  direction  was  reached  in  1828,  when 
the  districts  obtained  the  exclusive  control  of  the 
schools  in  all  matters  except  in  the  item  of  exami- 
tion  of  teachers.  The  public  schools  diminished 
in  efficiency,  and  a  twofold  opposition  began  some 
years  before  1828,  which  took,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  shape  of  an  attempt  to  remedy  the  deficiency 
of  public  schools  by  the  establishment  of  acade- 
mies, and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  of  a  vigorous 
attack  by  educational  reformers,  such  as  Horace 
Mann  and  his  able  coworker  Carter.  The  estab- 
lishment of  a  State  Board  of  Education,  and  the 
appfintment  of  Horace  Mann  as  its  secretary, 
mark  an  era  of  return  from  the  extreme  of  indi- 
vidualism to  the  proper  union  of  local  and  cen- 
tral authority  in  the  management  of  schools. 
The  smaller  the  territory  the  fewer  the  number 
of  able  men  and  women  available  for  school 
management.  The  town  contained  able  men 
enough  for  one  excellent  school  committee,  but 
not  always  enough  to  furnish  such  a  committee 
for  each  district. 

The  commencement  of  the  era  of  rapid  growth 
of  cities — our  urban  era — belongs  to  the  time  of 
Horace  Mannas  entrance  upon  his  labors  in  Mas- 


xii  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

sachTisetts.  It  is  the  era  of  railroads  and  manu- 
facturing towns.  Formerly  the  rural  districts 
held  a  winter  session  of  three  or  four  months 
taught  by  a  man,  and  a  summer  school  of  shorter 
session  taught  by  a  woman.  The  teacher  did  not 
adopt  teaching  as  a  vocation,  but  only  as  a  make- 
shift. After  the  railroads  came,  and  villages 
grew,  the  school  session  was  extended  to  ten  or 
eleven  months  and  teaching  became  a  vocation. 
Then  succeeded  a  demand  for  skilled  teachers, 
and  the  normal  school  was  established  to  give 
them  professional  training;  after  this  came  ex- 
pert supervision  of  schools. 

The  influence  of  Massachusetts  on  other  Com- 
monwealths in  school  matters  can  be  inferred  by 
the  frequency  with  which  one  finds  the  words  of 
the  law  of  1789  quoted  in  State  school  laws  and  in 
codes  of  school  regulations  adopted  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  city  schools.  "  Instructors  of  youth,^^ 
it  said,  ^^  should  exert  their  best  endeavors  to  im- 
press on  the  minds  of  children  and  youth  the 
principles  of  piety  and  justice  and  a  sacred  re- 
gard to  truth.^^  It  made  a  tentative  list  of  the 
virtues  that  can  be  cultivated  in  school,  such  as 
"  love-of_J:heir  cgiintry,  humanity,  and  universal 
benevolence ;  sobriety,  industry^  and  frugality ; 
chastity,  moderation,  and  temperance ;  and  those 
other  virtues  which  are  the  ornament  of  human 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  xiii 

society  and  the  basis  upon  which  a  republican 
Constitution  is  founded." 

Special  attention  is  called  to  the  long  battle 
against  the  district  system,  lasting  over  fifty  ^ 
years.  Three  times  it  was  abolished  by  the 
Legislature,  only  to  be  restored  again  quickly  by 
repeal  of  the  law  (1853,  1859,  1869).  At  last,  in 
1882,  when  only  forty-five  towns  out  of  the  total 
of  more  than  three  hundred  and  fifty  still  re- 
tained the  district  system,  the  fourth  law  was  tX 
passed,  and  the  system  finally  (it  is  believed) 
abolished. 

The  law  of  1836,  in  Massachusetts,  regulating 
the  employment  of  children  under  the  age  of  fif- 
teen years  working  in  the  mills,  forbade  such 
employment,  unless  the  child  had  attended  schpol 
three  months  ''  in  the  year  preceding  his  employ- 
ment.""  It  is  an  interesting  commentary  on  the 
efficiency  of  such  a  law  that  a  statute  in  the  same 
words  was  adopted  in  Connecticut,  and  this  was 
followed  by  a  full  attendance  of  children  from 
the  mills  every  alternate  winter.  The  law  was 
kept  in  its  letter  but  violated  in  its  spirit ;  for 
the  legal  interpretation  of  the  words  "three 
months  in  the  year  preceding  his  employment " 
was  construed  by  lawyers  to  refer  to  the  calendar 
year,  and  not  to  the  twelve  months  preceding  the 
time  of  employment,  as  the  lawmakers  intended. 


xiv  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

It  is  sometimes  mentioned  as  a  proof  of  the  in- 
efficiency of  the  Connecticut  law  that  there  were 
no  prosecutions  under  the  law.  But  the  fact  is, 
that  the  natural  reluctance  of  parents  to  render 
themselves  liable  to  such  prosecution  was  suffi- 
cient to  secure  a  general  attendance  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  mills  in  compliance  with  the  letter  of 
the  law.  Before  the  passage  of  the  law  a  large 
per  cent  of  the  children  were  deprived  of  their 
schooling  by  their  parents  for  the  sake  of  their 
earnings  in  the  mills. 

Mr.  Martin  names  the  steps  of  progress  in 
Massachusetts  education  as  follows : 

(1)  Compulsory  teaching ;  (2)  compulsory 
schools ;  (3)  compulsory  certificating  of  teachers ; 
(4)  compulsory  supervision;  (5)  compulsory 
school  attendance.  Besides  these  steps,  there  are 
other  highly  important  epochs  marked  by  (a)  the 
admission  of  girls  to  schools  above  the  primary 
grades;  (b)  the  establishment  of  English  high 
schools  (for  boys,  1821 ;  for  girls,  1825) ;  (c)  even- 
ing schools;  (d)  normal  schools;  (e)  industrial 
art  education  and  State  Normal  Art  School ;  (f) 
free  text-books ;  (g)  written  examinations  (1845) ; 
(7^)  the  adoption  of  single  classrooms  for  assist- 
ant teachers,  and  the  abolition  of  the  practice  of 
having  the  pupils  sit  together  in  a  large  hall  un- 
der the  master's  eye  for  purposes  of  study  (1847). 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  XV 

All  these  are  treated  by  Mr.   Martin    in    this 
book. 

I  find,  by  the  returns  made  to  the  National 
Bureau  of  Education,  that  the  total  amount  of 
school  education  that  each  inhabitant  of  Massa- 
chusetts is  receiving  on  an  average — basing  the 
calculation  on  the  attendance  in  public  and  pri- 
vate schools  and  the  length  of  the  annual  school 
term — is  nearly  seven  years  of  two  hundred  days 
each,  while  the  average  schooling  given  each  citi- 
zen in  the  whole  nation  is^j)|y|j||£giy^^j||4.,y,ij;;^d>= 
tenths  of  such  vears.  No  other  State  is  giving 
so' much  education  to  its  people  as  Massachusetts, 
and  yet  all  the  education  given  in  all  its  institu- 
tions does  not  amount  on  an  average  to  so  much 
as  seven  eighths  of  an  elementary  education  of 
eight  years.  Even  Massachusetts  is  not  over- 
educating  the  people.  But  there  would  seem  to 
be  some  connection  between  the  fact  that,  while 
her  citizens  get  nearly  twice  the  national  aver- 
age amount  of  education,  her  wealth-producing 
power  as  compared  with  other  States  stands 
almost  in  the  same  ratio  —  namely  (in  1885), 
at  seventy  -  three  cents  per  day  for  each  man, 
woman,  and  child,  while  the  average  for  the 
whole  nation  was  only  forty  cents. 

W.  T.  Harris. 

Washington,  D.  C,  November,  1894, 


AUTHOK'S    PREFACE. 


This  book  is  not  a  history  of  education  in 
Massachusetts.  For  such  a  work  the  materials 
are  ample,  and  only  await  the  approach  of  some- 
one who  has  time  and  inclination  to  use  them. 
The  author  has  the  inclination,  and  hopes  in  the 
future  to  have  the  time. 

The  present  work  is  only  a  sketch — a  study. 
It  aims  to  show  the  evolutionary  character  of  the 
public-school  history  of  the  State,  and  to  point 
out  the  lines  along  which  the  development  has 
run,  and  the  relation  throughout  to  the  social 
environment. 

Incidentally,  it  serves  to  illustrate  the  slow, 
wavering,  irregular  way  by  which  the  people 
under  popular  governments  work  out  their  own 
social  progress. 

The  lecture  form  in  which  the  material  was 
originally  cast  has  been  maintained  at  the  re- 
quest of  many  interested  persons.  A  few  refer- 
ences have  been  added  in  footnotes  to  facilitate 

xvii 


xviii  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

further  study,  if  any  reader  should  care  to  con- 
tinue his  investigations. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  Barnard^s 
Journal  of  Education  has  been  of  inestimable 
service  in  the  preparation  of  this  work,  for 
wherever  the  student  of  educational  history 
travels  he  will  find  that  Dr.  Barnard  has  been 
before  him.  One  hardly  knows  which  most  to 
thank  him  for — his  own  labors  in  the  cause  of 
education,  or  his  painstaking  memorials  of  the 
labors  of  others. 

The  author  is  especially  indebted  to  Mr.  C.  B. 
Tillinghast,  State  Librarian  of  Massachusetts, 
and  to  Mr.  Julius  H.  Tuttle,  Assistant  Librarian 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  for  valu- 
able assistance  and  advice. 

To  Mr.  Augustus  Lowell,  the  friend  of  educa- 
tion and  the  wise  and  public-spirited  trustee  of 
the  Lowell  Institute,  the  author  is  also  indebted 
for  the  earliest  opportunity  to  place  this  history 
before  the  public. 

Lynn,  Mass.,  September  i,  189S. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE   EARLY  LEGISLATION:   ITS   PRINCIPLES  AND   PRECEDENTS. 

PAGE 

Early  Massachusetts — people  and  polity.  Harvard  College. 
Laws  of  1642  and  1647.  Principles  em]?odied.  Sources 
of  ideas.  The  Reformation.  Schools  in  Germany,  Hol- 
land, Scotland.  Early  English  schools.  Destruction 
of  monasteries.  Endowed  schools.  Early  schools  in  ^ 
other  American  colonies.    The  claim  of  Massachusetts.      1 

LECTURE  II. 

SCHOOLS   BEFORE   THE   REVOLUTION. 

Schools  public — on  English  models — modes  of  support — 
studies — teachers.  Decline  of  school  spirit  in  the  sec- 
ond century.  Changes  in  population.  Decentraliza- 
tion. The  moving  school.  Rise  of  the  district  system. 
Employm^ent  of  wonjen  as  teachers^    Law  of  1789        .    44 

LECTURE  III. 

THE   DISTRICT   SCHOOL  AND   THE   ACADEMY. 

Evolution  of  the  school  (^strict.     The  school — location, 
house,  teachers,  studies,  influence  in  education.     Decay 
of  town  spirit.     Decline  of  grammar  schools.     Rise  of  ^^  - 
academies — relation  to  the  State — influence.    Educa- 
tion of  girls — in  public  schools — in  seminaries      .        .     90 
xix 


XX  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  IV. 

HORACE   MANN  AND   THE   REVIVAL   OF   EDUCATION. 

PAGE 

European  revival — philanthropic  and  philosophic.  Infant 
schools.  Monitorial  schools.  Mechanics'  ins1;itutes. 
Pestalozzi,  Jacotot,  Fellenberg.  Similar  movements  in 
America.    Public  awakening.    James  Gr.  Carter's  work. 

^-—  Law  of  1826.  History  of  supervision.  School  fund. 
Board  of  Education.  Horace  Mann :  character,  meth- 
ods of  work — normal  schools — institutes — opposition — 
results '    .        .  135 

LECTURE  V. 

THE   MODERN   SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

Social  and  industrial  changes  in  Massachusetts.  Graded 
schools.  High  schools.  Decay  of  academies.  Decline 
and  abolition  of  the  district  system.  School  buildings. 
Compulsory  attendance.  Employment  of  children. 
Truancy.  Evening  schools.  Professional  supervision. 
Free  text-books.  Education  of  the  defective  classes. 
Higher  education.  Colleges  for  women.  Sectarian 
discussion.  Bible  in  schools.  Parochial  schools.  Pub- 
lic-school spirit  dominant        .       .        -  /~  »        -        •  186 

LECTURE  VI. 

THE   MODERN   SCHOOL. 

The  modem  school :  purpose,  spirit,  curriculum,  methods. 
Impulse  from  Pestalozzi,  Froebel,  Spencer — from  nor- 
mal schools.  Industrial  drawing.  Manual  training. 
Kindergartens.  Influence  of  Board  of  Education. 
Teachers'  associations.  Educational  literature.  Con- 
servative influence  of  democracy.  Influence  of  the 
colleges — the  Legislature.    General  review   .        .        .  236 


MASSACHUSETTS 
PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE    EARLY    LEGISLATION;    ITS    PRINCIPLES  AND 
PRECEDENTS. 

The  late  Chief- Justice  Shaw,  in  a  famous  in- 
terpretation of  school  law,  used  these  words : 

It  would  be  curious  to  examine  into  the  early  legislation  and 
see  from  what  small  beginnings  and  by  what  slow  and  steady 
progress  the  system  of  public  instruction  has  increased  to  its 
present  magnitude,  maintained  at  great  expense,  cherished  with 
the  most  anxious  solicitude,  and  affecting  the  dearest  social  and 
political  interests  of  the  State. — (Gushing,  8-164.) 

Such  an  examination  is  the  purpose  of  this  course 
of  lectures. 

In  1635  the  town  of  Boston,  having  attained 
the  agaof  five  years — the  school  age — put  upon 
its  records  the  following  vote :  * 

Agreed  upon  that  our  brother  Philemon  Pormort  shall  be 
entreated  to  become  schoolmaster  for  the  teaching  and  nurtur- 
ing children  with  us. 

*  Second  Report  of  Boston  Record  Commissioners,  p.  5. 


2''^'  J^Jlfek-GHUSSTTS^'PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Who  were  the  men  who  so  long  ago  were  not 
ashamqd  to  call  the  schoolmaster  ^^  brother ""  ? 
What  were  their  character  and  purpose  ?  For  no 
one  has  a  right  to  treat  of  Massachusetts  history 
in  any  of  its  phases  who  does  not  first  answer 
these  questions. 

They  were  not  needy  adventurers,  seeking  to 
restore  their  ruined  fortunes  in  a  land  of  gold, 
like  the  cavaliers  of  New  Spain.  They  were  not 
ignorant  peasants,  beguiled  into  the  wilderness  to 
form  the  servile  basis  for  a  feudal  regime,  as  in 
New  France.  They  were  not  exiles  driven  from 
their  homes  by  the  edicts  of  tyranny,  like  the  Hu- 
guenots. They  were  well-to-do,  intelligent  Eng- 
lish yeomen  and  gentlemen,  with  some  artisans 
and  traders,  and  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  scholars. 
I  say  they  were  intelligent :  if  I  say  they  were 
Puritans,  the  other  need  not  be  said. 

Puritanism,  like  Minerva,  sprang  from  the 
brain.  It  was  the  consummate  flower  of  English 
intellect,  stimulated  by  the  most  eventful  cen- 
tury in  English  history.  The  story  of  that  cen- 
tury is  a  familiar  one.  Just  a  hundred  years 
before,  Henry  VIII  had  severed  England  from 
the  papacy.  Then  came  the  spread  of  the  Tyn- 
dale  Bible ;  the  semi-Protestantism  of  the  youth- 
ful Edward ;  the  reaction  under  Mary,  lurid  with 
the  fires  of  Smithfield ;  the  accession  of  the  Vir- 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  3 

gin  Queen ;  the  Renaissance  of  chivalry ;  the  fix- 
ing of  the  Protestant  succession ;  the  intolerant 
Acts  of  Supremacy  and  Uniformity ;  the  harry- 
ing of  Catholics  and  Brownists;  the  Catholic 
League ;  the  Spanish  Armada ;  the  burst  of  patri- 
otism which  repelled  it;  the  naval  glories  of 
Drake  and  Hawkins ;  the  splendors  of  the  court, 
with  Burleigh  and  Leicester,  Essex  and  Raleigh ; 
the  more  brilliant  galaxy  of  literary  celebrities — 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare,  Bacon  and  Hooker; 
the  succession  of  the  Presbyterian  James — nar- 
row, opinionated,  arbitrary,  ^^the  wisest  fool  in 
Europe '' ;  the  Hampton  Court  conference,  disap- 
pointing the  Puritans;  the  profound  discussion 
of  religious  doctrines  and  polities ;  the  clashing 
of  parliamentary  rights  with  royal  prerogatives ; 
the  marshaling  of  the  forces  that  were  to  set 
aside  the  right  divine  of  kings  and  put  the  peo- 
ple on  the  throne.  Here  was  enough  to  set  the 
coldest  brain  on  fire.  No  wonder  that  the  rea- 
son so  often  lost  its  power  to  control^  that  fa- 
natics were  multiplied ;  that  this  was  the  age  of 
isms. 

The  Puritans  were  in  the  thick  of  all  this; 
and  the  Massachusetts  Puritans,  in  intellectual 
vigor,  in  literary  culture,  in  political  sagacity, 
in  patriotic  devotion,  as  well  as  in  the  strength 
of  religious  conviction,  were  not  a  whit  behind 


4       MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

their  brethren  whom  they  left  to  fight  the  battle 
at  home. 

Such  were  the  men  whose  acts  we  are  to 
^^  study,  and  their  purpose  was  in  keeping  with 
their  character.  They  came  here  to  found  a  state 
— an  English  state  and  a  Puritan  state.  They 
were  not  visionaries  nor  fanatics.  They  combined 
in  a  remarkable  degree  the  profoundly  intellec- 
tual with  the  severely  practical.  "  New  lights  " 
found  anything  but  a  hospitable  welcome.  Cot- 
ton Mather  says  of  Governor  Dudley : 

There  was  no  man  that  more  hated  fanatics  and  wild  opin- 
ionists  than  he  did,  notwithstanding  he  was  so  strenuous  an 
oppugner  of  conformity  and  the  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

The  emigrants  came  here  to  reproduce,  as 
nearly  as  cirpumstances  would  allow,  their  Eng- 
lish life,  and  to  provide  for  its  continuance. 
They  had  no  elaborate  scheme  of  government, 
like  that  which  Locke  and  Shaftesbury  pre- 
pared for  the  Carolinas;  they  went  about  their 
work  in  the  mosi^^traightf  orwar^  way.    They  set 

,  up  their  home  lixe  and  social  life  and  town  life 
and  church  life  as  quietly  as  if  they  had  been 

I  planting  colonies  all  their  lives.  What  of  Eng- 
lish customs  and  precedents  they  could  use  they 
used ;  what  they  could  not  use  they  dropped ;  what 
new  ones  they  needed  they  supplied ;  and  all  as  if 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  5 

they  were  doing  the  most  commonplace  thing  in 
tjie  world. 

^  The  civil  organization  of  the  colony  was  pe- 
culiar. The  people  had  emigrated  nnder  a  char- 
ter which  gave  all  civil  authority  to  the  officers 
and  members  of  a  corporation  formed  to  pro- 
mote settlement  and  trade.  Only  those  settlers 
who  were  members  of  the  company  had  a  voice 
in  the  government,  and  for  a  time  only  members 
of  the  churches  could  be  members  of  the  com- 
pany. This  gave  controlling  influence  to  the  min- 
isters, university  educated  men,  whose  command- 

^ing  scholarshi^_and  eloquence  had,  made  them 
shining  marks  for  ecclesiastical  persecution. 

Upon  arrival  the  settlers  had  dispersed  in 
groups,  selecting  eligible  sites  around  Boston  as  \  I 
a  center.  These  groups  of  people  living  together  ^ 
began  at  once  to  act  together  on  matters  of  com- 
mon interest — the  partition  of  lands,  the  herding 
of  cattle,  watch  and  ward,  matters  of  common 
concern.  Thus  the  town  life  was  set  up.  At 
first  all  action  was  voluntary  and  without  legal 
authority.  The  center  and  source  of  all  author- 
ity was  the  General  Court ;  at  first  an  assembly 
of  all  the  members  of  the  company,  but  soon  com- 
posed of  deputies  sent  by  the  towns,  together 
with  the  Governor  and  a  body  of  magistrates  also 
chosen  by  the  people.    Thus  was  combined^^  as  in 


6       MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

all  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  local  autonomy 
with,  supreme  central  authority.  Our  study, 
therefore,  must  be  along  two  lines.  The  acts  of 
the  General  Court  represent  public  sentiment 
when  crystallized  into  law.  The  formative  pe- 
riod is  disclosed  in  the  history  of  the  towns. 

In  the  first  volume  of  the  Massachusetts 
Records — those  "  short  and  simple  annals  of  the 
poor '' — we  read :  * 

At  a  Court  holden  Sept.  8,  1636,  and  continued  by  adjourn- 
ment to  the  28th  of  the  8th  month,  October,  1636,  the  Court 
agreed  to  give  £400  toward  a  school  or  college ;  £200  to  be  paid 
next  year  and  £200  when  the  work  is  finished,  and  the  next 
Court  to  appoint  where  and  what  building. 

The  next  year  ^^the  college  is  ordered  to  be 
at  Newtown.^^  Soon  the  name  of  the  town  was 
changed  to  Cambridge,  in  loving  memory  of  the 
alma  mater  of  so  many  of  the  colonists. 

In  1638,  before  the  college  was  fairly  estab- 
lished, John  Harvard,  a  minister  who  had  been 
in  the  colony  but  a  year,  dying,  bequeathed  his 
library  and  half  his  property  to  the  infant  insti- 
tution. Says  President  Quincy  in  his  history  of 
Harvard  University :  f 

An  instance  of  benevolence  thus  striking  and  timely  .  .  . 
was  accepted  by  our  fathers  as  an  omen  of  divine  favor.     With 

*  Records  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  i,  p.  183. 

t  Quincy's  History  of  Harvard  University,  2d  ed.,  vol.  i,  p.  9, 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  7 

prayer  and  thanksgiving  they  immediately  commenced  the  sem- 
inary, and  conferred  upon  it  the  name  of  Harvard. 

Historians  have  dwelt  chiefly  upon  the-  liber- 
ality of  the  people  in  their  endowment  of  the  new 
college.  It  was  liberal  indeed — ^400.  Palfrey 
says  it  was  equal  to  the  whole  colony  tax  for  a 
year.  I  It  was  eqnal  to  fifty  cents  for  each  of  the 
inhabitants  of  th,e  colony.  At  the  same  rate  now 
a  million  dollars  would  scarcely  represent  the 
value  of  the  endowment,  and  it  would  not  begin 
to  represent  its  burden  upon  the  people. 

But  the  act  is  not  most  significant  for  its  lib- 
erality. There  was  in  it  a  sublime  faith  in  the 
future,  akin  to  that  which  led  the  childless  patri- 
arch to  see  in  the  innumerable  stars  of  his  Syrian 
sky  a  symbol  of  his  own  posterity.  There  was  a 
consciousness  of  being  at  work  at  foundations,  of 
building  for  all  time.  There  was  an  intelligent 
conception  of  the  relation  of  learning  to  truth 
and  of  truth  to  civil  and  religious  liberty.  What 
memories  of  their  own  college  days,  what  visions 
of  the  future,  what  painful  sense  of  contrast 
these  graduates  of  old  Cambridge  had  as  they 
planned  for  their  infant  college,  we  do  not  know ; 
but  we  do  know  that  they  had  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  apostle — they  were  ready  to  forget  the 
t,  *ugs  which  were  behind,  and  to  reach  out  to 
^l^hose  which  were  before.    All  this  is  expressed 


8       MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

in  that  of ten-qnoted  sentence   from  New  Eng- 
land's First  Fruits :  * 

i  After  God  had  carried  us  safe  to  New  England  and  we  had 

)  builded  our  houses,  provided  necessaries  for  our  livelihood, 

^X.'^    reared  convenient  places  for  God's  worship,  and  settled  the  civil 

\   j     government,  one  of  the  next  things  we  longed  for  and  looked 

\J     \^   after  was  to  advance  learning  and  perpetuate  it  to  posterity ; 

dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministry  to  the  churches  when 

our  pres»  ut  ministry  shall  lie  in  the  dust. 

« 
A  certain  class  of  writers  on  Massachusetts 

history  is  fond  of  saying  that  the  infant  colony 

was  dominated  by  the  ministers,  and  that  they 

founded   Harvard   College  not  from  a  love  of 

learning,  but  as  a  means  of  perpetuating  their 

own  influence.      If  we  give  the  ministers  the 

credit  of  founding  the  college,  we  must  also  give 

them  the  credit  of  the  legislative  act  of  1642.  f 

The  Court— 

jL^taking  into  consideration  the  great  neglect  of  many  parents  and 
•  (v        guardians  in  training  up  their  children  in  learning  and  labor 
-..•Y"    ^^^d  other  employments  which  may  be  profitable  to  the  com- 
^^^\     monwealth — 

order  that  the  selectmen  in  every  town  shall 
have  power  to  take  account  of  all  parents  and 
I  masters  as  to  their  children's  education  and  em- 
ployment. The  chosen  men  may  divide  the  town 
among  them  so  that  each  shall  have  the  over- 

*  Coll.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  i,  1st  series,  p.  242. 
f  Records  of  Mass.,  vol.  ii,  p.  8. 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  9 

sight  of  a  certain  number  of  families.  They  are 
to  see  that  the  children  can  read  and  understand 
the  principles  of  religion  and  the  capital  laws  of 
the  country,  and  that  they  are  put  to  some  useful 
work. 

Those  Puritan  ministers  were  not,  after  all,  as 
black  as  they  have  been  painted.  There  is  no 
taint  of  priestcraft  about  this  law.  Bigoted  ec- 
clesiastics, aiming  to  promote  the  interests  of 
their  order,  have  not  been  wont  to  include  in 
their  schemes  the  universal  education  of  the 
masses. 

Another  principle  underlay  this  law.  "  Profit- 
able to  the  commonwealth  "  is  the  language  used. 
In  a  revision  of  the  law,  made  a  few  years  later, 
the  preamble  says : 

For  inasmuch  as  the  good  education  of  children  is  of  singu- 
lar behoof^and  benefit  to  any  commonwealth — 

for  the  parents  not  to  teacl\  their  children  to 
read  the  English  tongue  and  to  know  the  capital 
law  is  barbarism.  They  knew  that  an  indus- 
trious child  was  a  squared  stone  fit  to  be  builded 
into  the  e/iifice  they  were  rearing,  so  they  would 
have  the  children  put  to  work.  They  called 
illiteracy  barbarism,  and  therefore,  not  for  the 
Church's  sake  nor7or~'the  child's  sake,  but  for 
{( .the  sake^f  th6_.comLiiiQirgealth,  they  insisted  ^rr 
universal  education.     That  this  law  was  not  a 


J 


10     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

dead  letter  the  records  of  the  towns  abundantly 
show.  The  following  extracts  from  the  records 
of  the  town  of  Billerica  are  typical  ones  :  * 

1 — 5 — '61.     "  The  Townsmen  doe  agree  yt  Lieftenant  "Will : 
french  and  Ralph  Hill  senior,  doe  take  care  and  (examine)  the 
seiierell  famelies  in  our  Towne  whethr  there  children  and  serv- 
ants are  Taught  in  the  precepts  of  relidione,  in  reding  and 
Learning  there  Catechism." 

10 — 9 — '68.  The  selectmen  "  appoint  ye  next  seconday  to 
go  ye  rounds  to  examine  the  teachings  of  children  and  youth 
according  to  law." 

3 — 19 — 75.  "In  reference  to  the  catechising  of  ye  youth 
of  ye  towne  and  examining  them  concerning  their  reading,  a 
duty  imposed  on  ye  selectmen  by  ye  Hon'"'^  Court  to  take  care 
that  children  and  youth  be  instructed  in  both.  The  selectmen 
doe  order  that  all  children  and  youth  single  persons  from  eight 
years  old  upward  their  parence  and  masters  shall  send  such 
their  children  and  servants  to  ye  Reverend  Mr.  Samuel  Whiting 
at  such  times  as  shallbee  afterward  appointed  by  him,  to  be 
examined  of  both,  as  hoping  this  might  be  a  good  expedient  for 
ye  encouragement  of  all  superiours  and  youth." 

Five  years  later^  in   1647,  was    enacted  the 
.  school  law  which  is  the  real  foundation  of  the 
j  Massachusetts  school  system.^ 
\        During  the   seventeen  years  of  the  colony^s 
\  existence,  it  had  been  growing  in  numbers.     It 
had  attained  a  population  of  nearly  twenty  thou- 
sand people,  living  in  thirty  towns.     They  had 
planted  "  fifty  towns  and  villages,  built  thirty  or 
forty  churches  and  more  ministers'  houses,  a  cas- 

*  Hazen's  History  of  Billerica,  p.  252. 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  H 

tie,  a  college,  prisons,  forts,  cartways  and  cause- 
ways many;  had  comfortable  houses,  gardens 
and  orchards,  grounds  fenced  and  cornfields/^ 
They  had  begun  to  export  some  staples — furs, 
clapboards,  hoops,  pipestaves  and  masts,  grain 
and  provisions  for  victualing  ships,  fish  of  vari- 
ous kinds,  pitch,  tar,  resin  and  turpentine,  oils. 
They  were  raising  hemp  and  flax  and  manufac- 
turing them.  They  were  mining  iron  and  cast- 
ing it  at  Saugus,  making  woolen  and  cotton 
cloth  at  Rowley,  and  glass  at  Salem.  They  were 
building  ships  at  Medford  and  Marblehead,  Sa- 
lem and  Boston,  and  before  1647  these  same  ships 
were  carrying  the  products  of  Massachusetts  to 
Virginia  and  the  West  Indies,  to  London  and 
Teneriffe  and  Malaga.* 

Many  of  the  towns  had  provided  schools  and 
were  sending  their  boys  to  the  college  at  Cam- 
bridge. But  this  was  not  enough.  So  far  all 
was  yabintary.  There  was  danger  that  as  the 
colonists  penetrated  farther  into  the  wilderness, 
as  new  exigencies  arose,  as  the  rewards  of  busi- 
ness enterprise  grew  more  sure  and  more  entic- 
ing, education  would  become  neglected,  and  that 
the  public  spirit  which  had  characterized  the 
first  settlers  would  be  chilled  by  a  narrow  regard 


*  Palfrey's  History  of  New  England,  ii,  pp.  53-57. 
3 


12     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

for  private  interests.  It  is  probable  that  already 
some  of  the  towns  had  made  no  corporate  provi- 
sion for  schools,  and  that  in  others  the  means  of 
education  had  not  expanded  with  the  increase  in 
numbers  and  wealth.  In  these  circumstances  a 
law  was  framed  so  broad  and  generous  in  its 
scope  as  to  challenge  the  admiration  of  states- 
men ;  *  so  exact,  yet  so  elastic  in  its  provisions, 
that  with  a  single  addition  it  suflBced  for  one 
hundred  and  forty  years  of  Massachusetts  his- 
tory. /  More  than  tlxis,  it  contained  as  in  embryo 
the  whole  school  system  of  Massachusetts  as  we 
know  it  to-day.  The  process  which  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  study  is  one  of  evolution,  not  of 
accretion.  Many  readers  are  already  familiar 
with  the  law :  f 

"  It  being  one  chief e  project  of  y*  ould  deluder, 
Sathan,  to  keepe  men  from  the  knowledge  of  y* 
Scriptures,  as  in  form'  times  by  keeping  y"  in  an 
unknowne  tongue,  so  in  these  latt'  times  by  per- 
swading  from  y*  use  of  tongues  y*  so  at  least  y* 
true  sence  and  meaning  of  y*  originall  might  be 
clouded  by  false  glosses  of  saint  seeming  deceiv- 
ers, y*  learning  may  not  be  buried  in  y"  grave  of 


*  Macaulay's  Speeches,  ii,  pp.  333-335,  ed.  of  Redfield,  New 
York,  1853. 

f  Records  of  Mass.,  toI.  ii,  p.  208. 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  13 

o'  fath"  in  y"  church  and  comonwealth,  the  Lord 
assisting  o'  endeavo's. 

"It  is  therefore  ord'ed,  y*  ev'y  township  in 
this  jurisdiction,  aft'  y'  Lord  hath  increased  y*"  to 
y*  number  of  fifty  household",  shall  then  forth w*^ 
appoint  one  w*^in  their  towne  to  teach  all  such 
children  as  shall  resort  to  him  to  write  and  reade, 
whose  wages  shall  be  paid  eith'  by  y*  parents  or 
mast"  of  such  children,  of  by  y"  inhabitants  in 
gen'all,  by  way  of  supply,  as  y*  maior  p'  of  those 
y'  ord'  y*  prudentials  of  y*  towne  shall  appoint ; 
provided,  those  y*  send  their  children  be  not  op- 
pressed by  paying  much  more  y"  they  can  have 
y"  taught  for  in  othe'  townes ;  and  it  is  f urth'  or- 
dered, y*  where  any  towne  shall  increase  to  y* 
numV  of  one  hundred  families  or  househould" 
they  shall  set  up  a  gramer  schoole,  y^  master 
thereof  being  able  to  instruct  youth  so  farr  as 
they  may  be  fited  for  y*  university ;  provided, 
y*  if  any  towne  neglect  y®  performance  hereof 
above  one  yeare,  y*  every  such  towne  shall  pay 
5"  to  y*  next  schoole  till  they  shall  perf orme  this 
order/'  --^ 

With  the  enactment  of  this  law  the  systei]^,^^ 
was  complete:  elementary  English  schools,  sec- 
ondary classical  schools,  and  the  college.     With 
these  as  instruments,  the  commonwealth  might 
provide  itself  with  learned  ministers  and  teachers 

\/\ 


14     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

and  with  an  intelligent  body  of  citizens,  of  whom 
a  part  would  be  fitted  for  leadership  by  the  supe- 
rior culture  afforded  by  the  higher  schools. 

An  analysis  of  the  laws  of  1642  and  1647  dis- 
covers the  principles  upon  which  Massachusetts 
school  history  rests : 

'*^.  The  universal  education  of  youth  is  essen- 
tial to  the  well-being  of  the  state. 

2.  The  obligation  to  furnish  this  education 
rests  primarily  upon  the  parent. 

3.  The  state. haS-,2uright  to  enforce  this  obli- 
g^on. 

The  law  of  1642  said  nothing  of/ schools.  It 
simply  insisted  that  the  children  should  be  edu- 
cated; all  children — girls  and  boys — children 
bound  out  to  service  as  well  as  children  at  home. 
How  or  where  they  should  be  taught  it  did  not 
prescribe,  and  the  oflBcers  intrusted  with  the  en- 
forcement of  the  law  were  empowered  to  demand 
only  results ;  they  were  neither  to  provide  means, 
nor  act  as  censors  of  methods.  But  the  state 
claimed  the  right  to  know  (and  exercised  it) 
whether  the  child  was  educated,  and  to  know 
it  through  officers  appointed  for  that  purpose. 

4.  The  state  may  fix  a  standard  which  shall 
determine  the  kind  of  education,  and  the  mini- 
mum amount. 

Thus  the  law  of  1642  said  that  the  child  must 


THE  EAELY  LEGISLATION.  15 

know  how  to  read  and  understand  the  principles 
of  religion  and  the  capital  laws.  The  law  of 
1647  went  further,  and  required  the  towns  in 
their  corporate  capacity  to  provide  suitable  op- 
portunities for  the  required  education,  so  that  the 
want  of  such  opportunities  might  not  seem  to  re- 
lieve the  parent  from  his  obligation.  If  the  town 
had  not  the  fifty  householders,  the  obligation 
upon  the  parent  was  not  less  binding.  No  child 
might  suffer  because  he  lived  in  an  infant  com- 
munity or  in  a  sparsely  settled  one.  But  while 
these  laws  decreed  compulsory  education,  they 
did  not  make  school  attendance  compulsory. 
The  teacher  was  to  instruct ''  all  such  children  as 
should  resort  to  him.^'  They  need  not  resort  to 
him  if  they  were  educated  elsewhere.  The  law 
neither  restricted  parental  rights  nor  interfered 
with  parental  choice. 

The  law  of  1647  enunciated  another  principle : 

5.  Public  money  raised  by  general  tax  may  be 
used  to  provide  such  education  as  the  state  re- 
quires. The  tax  may  be  general,  though  the 
school  attendance  is  not. 

6.  Education  higher  than  the  rudiments  may 
be  supplied -%y4he  state.  Opportunity  must  be 
provided  at  public  expense  for  youths  who  wish 
it  to  be  fitted  for  the  university. 

Whatever  discussion  may  arise  upon  the  ab- 


16     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

s+ract  justice  of  any  of  these  principles,  the  fact 
remains  that  they  were  incorporated  into  the 
earliest  statutes,  and  have  been  a  part  of  Massa- 
chusetts history  from  the  beginning. 

It  is  important  to  note  here  that  the  idea 
underlying  all  this  is  neither  paternal  nor  social- 
istic. The  child  is  to  be  educated,  not  to  advance 
^  his  personal  interests,  but  because  the  state  will 
suffer  if  he  is  not  educated.  The  state  does  not 
provide  schools  to  relieve  the  parent,  nor  because 
it  can  educate  better  than  the  parent  can,  but  be- 
cause it  can  thereby  better  enforce  the  obligation 
^which  it  imposes. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  England  has  never 
made  provision  for  education  equally  generous, 
we  are  led  to  ask  for  the  source  of  principles  so 
wise  and  so  statesmanlike,  incorporated  into  their 
life  so  early  by  people  just  from  England. 
,  Looked  at  in  its  large  relation,  the  Puritan 
migration  was  only  a  part  of  that  great  upward' 
movement  which,  beginning  with  the  revival  of*. 
J.e^rning  in  western  Europe,  has  not  yet  ceased, 
and  which,  reacting  on  the  Eastern  world,  seems 
destined  to  include  in  its  scope  the  whole  human 
race./^  Of  this  movement  the  Protestant  revolu- 
tion was  the  most  conspicuous  feature  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.  Of  the  Prot- 
estant revolution  learning  was  first  the   sword 


THE  EARL/  LEGISLATION.  17 

and  then  the  shield.  \^  It  is  doubtful  if  Luther's 
attempt  to  reform  the  Church  would  have  met 
with  any  less  tragic  fate  than  had  those  of  Wiclif 
and  Huss,  if  the  newjearning  had  not  already 
opened  men^s  minds  and  made  them  more  re- 
ceptive of  new  truth?^  Erasmus  made  men  laugh- 
at  the  ignorance  before  lather  made  them  angry 
at  the  corruption  of  the  clergy^  And  when  t'ae 
reformed  doctrines  were  established,  the  reforn  - 
ers  everywhere  aimed  to  perpetuate  their  f aitli 
by  educating  the  people.  The  keynote  of  this 
attempt  was  struck  by  Luther,  in  his  address  to 
the  councilmen  of  all  the  towns  of  Germany  in 
1524.*  After  lamenting  the  neglected  education 
of  the  young,  Luther  appeals  to  the  magistrates^ 
with  an  eloquence  and  force  which  have  never 
been  surpassed.     Said  he : 

A  city's  increase  consists  not  alone  in  heaping  up  great 
treasures,  in  building  solid  walls,  or  in  multiplying  artillery; 
nay,  where  there  is  a  great  store  of  this  and  yet  fools  with  it,  it 
is  all  the  worse  and  all  the  greater  loss  for  the  city.  But  this 
is  the  best  and  the  richest  increase,  prosperity  and  strength 
of  a  city — that  it  shall  contain  a  great  number  of  polished, 
learned,  intelligent,  honorable,  and  well-bred  citizens ;  who, 
when  they  have  become  all  this,  may  then  get  wealth  and  put 
it  to  good  use.  Since,  then,  a  city  must  have  citizens,  ...  we 
are  not  to  wait  until  they  are  grown  up.  We  can  neither  hew 
them  out  of  wood  nor  carve  them  out  of  stone.  .  .  .  We  must 
use  the  appointed  means,  and  with  cost  and  care  rear  up  and 
mold  our  citizens. 

*  Barnard's  Journal  of  Education,  iv,  p.  429. 


18     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBJilC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

He  an  wers  the  evNr-repeated  question — 
What  wi  it  profit  us  to  have  Latin,  Greek, 
Hebrew,  a  ^'  your  other  liberal  arts  taught  in 
our  schools  ir  These  languages  and  these  arts  are 
agreeable  and  useful  alike ;  sources  both  of  honor 
and  of  'profit';  throwing  light  upon  the  Scriptures 
and  imparti  ^  sound  wisdom  to  rulers.  He  ar- 
gues-that  thej- Church  had  fallen  into  corruption 
T^ecause  the  languages  had  been  lost,  and  afiirms 
that  (iod  had  caused  the  languages  to  put  on 
bloom  and  vigor  f/>r  the  sake  of  the  gospel.  We 
may  conclude,  he  says,  that  where  the  languages 
do  not  abide,  there  in  the  end  the  gospel  must 
perish. 

V  The  preamble  to  the  Massachusetts  school  law 
ot  1647  is  a  perfect  echo  of  this  appeal.  Luther 
had  said :  "  The  prince  of  darkness  is  shrewd 
enough  to  know  that  where  the  languages  flour- 
ish, there  his  power  will  be  so  rent  and  torn  that 
^  he  00,%  .^ot  readily  repair  it.  Few  of  us  perceive 
ithe  craf  I  and  snare  of  the  devil.''  The  Puritans 
of  M-assachusetts  had  their  eyes  wide  open  on 
this  side,  and  if  they  never  threw  the  ink-bottle 
at  Satan,  as  Luther  did,  they  used  its  contents 
with  as  much  vigor  and  wisdom.  Their  pre- 
amble says : 

It  being  one  chief  project  of  that  old  deludeiv^atan  to  keep 
men  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  as  in  former  times 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  19 

by  keeping  them  in  an  unknown  tongue,  so   "  i  these  latter 
times  by  persuading  from  the  use  of  tongues. 

If  there  is  any  better  means  of  o"     ^Wtting  the 
devil  than  by  popular  education,  .he  genius  of  ^ 
man  has  not  yet  discovered  it. 

But  Luther  would  not  have  his  education 
rest  wholly  on  ghostly  motives.  '^Were  there 
no  soul/'  said  he,  "and  were  there  no  need  of 
schools  or  of  the  languages  for  the  sake  of  the 
Scriptures  or  of  God,  yet  it  would  be  a  suflBcient 
reason  for  establishing  in  e^"3ry  place  the  very 
best  of  schools,  both  for  boys  and  girls,  that  the 
world  merely  to  maifttain  its  outward  prosperity 
has  need  of  shrewd  and  accomplished  men  and 
women,  men  to  pilot  state  and  people  safely  and 
to  good  issues,  women  to  train  up  well  and  to 
confirm  in  good  courses  the  children  and  serv- 
ant^.^'  In  the  same  address  Luther  argues  as 
soundly  for  public  libraries  as  for  schools. 

The  school  system  as  planned  by  Lr^'^or  and 
Melanchthon  *  included  in  one  or  two  plr  ces  i' 
the  principality  a  learned  school,  whence  pi-each- 
ers,  pastors,  clerks,  and  councilors  might  be  taken 
for  the  whole  principality.  In  all  the  towns  and 
villages  good  schools  for  the  children  should  be 
established,  whence  those  who  were  adapted  to 

*  Barnard's  National  Education  in  Europe,  p.  20. 


20     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

higher  studies  might  be  taken  and  trained  up 
for  the  public. 

Under  these  arguments  and  appeals,  a  school 
/  law  was  adopted  and  schools  opened  in  Branden- 
burg before  1540 ;  in  Wittenberg  in  1559 ;  in  Sax- 
ony in  1560 ;  in  Hesse  in  1565.  The  Thirty  Years' 
^  >Var  interfered  with  the  schools,  but  at  its  close, 
f  or  before,  the  government  made  it  compulsory 
on  parents,  under  a  penalty  of  fine  and  imprison- 
ment, to  send  the  children  to  school  during  a 
certain  period. 

Holland  early  felt  the  impulse.  Schools  were 
already  numerous  in  the  cities  when  the  Synod 
of  1586  sought  to  make  them  universal.  It 
ordered  that  the  consistories  or  assemblies  of 
ministers  and  elders  of  the  churches  should  take 
care  that  schools  should  be  everywhere  provided 
with  good  schoolmasters  to  instruct  the  children 
of  all  classes  of  persons  in  reading,  writing,  rhet- 
oric, and  the  liberal  arts,  as  well  as  in  the  doc- 
trines of  religion  and  the  catechism  of  the 
Church. 

What  Luther  did  for  Germany,  Knox  did  for 

Scotland.      The  First   Book  of    Discipline,  pre- 

^  .  pared  under  Knox's  direction  in  1560,*  ordained 

that  every  several  kirk  should  have  one  school- 

*  Works  of  John  Knox,  Laing,  Edinburgh,  ed.  1848,  vol.  ii, 
p.  183. 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  21 

master  appointed,  able  to  teach  grammar  and  the 
Latin  tongue ;  this  if  the  town  is  of  any  reputa- 
tion. In  the  upland  towns  the  minister  is  to  take 
care  of  the  children  and  instruct  them  in  the  first 
rudiments  and  in  the  catechism.  The  civil  au- 
thorities were  slow  to  assist  in  carrying  out  these 
beneficent  provisions,  but  in  1633 — two  years  be- 
fore Boston  was  looking  for  a  schoolmaster — a 
parliamentary  enactment  directed  that  a  school 
should  be  established  in  every  parish,  and  that 
theJands  be  assessed  for  the  purpose. 

( To  England  we  must  give  a  more  minute  ex- 
amination.* Here  as  elsewhere  before  the  Refor- 
mation, the  schools  had  been  associated  chiefly 
with  the  various  monastic  establishments,  and 
had  experienced  the  same  vicissitudes  of  fortune. 
As  early  as  the  seventh  century,  when  Theodo-., 
sius  of  Tarsus  came  to  the  see  of  Canterbury,  he 
made  the  great  monasteries  seats  of  learning;  and 
more  than  a  hundred  years  later,  when  Charle- 
magne attempted  a  revival  of  learning  in  France, 
he  drew  his  teachers  from  England.  In  the  Dan- 
ish invasions  the  schools  were  carried  down  in 
the  universal  wreck  of   Christian    institutions, 

*  For  study  of  early  education  in  England,  see  Hook's  Lives 
of  the  Archbishops,  Carlisle's  Grammar  Schools,  Ackerman's 
History  of  the  Colleges  of  Eton,  Winchester,  etc.,  Schools  En- 
quiry Commission  Report,  1868. 


22     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

and  Alfred^s  utmost  exertions  only  partially  res- 
cued his  realm  from  the  ignorance  which  caused 
his  earnest  soul  so  much  solicitude.  After  the 
Conquest  conventual  establishments  multiplied 
— abbeys,  priories,  chantries ;  five  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  new  ones  were  founded  between  the 
time  of  the  Conquest  and  the  death  of  King  John 
(1216).  To  most  of  these  schools  were  attached. 
There  were,  besides,  cathedral  schools  under  the 
immediate  care  of  the  bishop,  and  schools  among 
the  Jews  who  at  that  period  congregated  in  all 
the  large  towns.  It  was  a  Jewish  rabbi  of  the 
period  who  declared  that  the  world  would  not 
subsist  were  it  not  for  the  babbling  of  little 
school  children.  If  the  youth  of  England  were 
not  educated  up  to  the  standard  of  the  time,  it 
was  not  for  lack  of  opportunity.  The  education 
furnished  by  these  ecclesiastical  schools  was  in- 
tended chiefly  to  prepare  youth  for  the  services 
of  the  Church.  It  was  what  would  in  these  days 
be  called  a  practical  education.  It  had  a  "  bread- 
and-butter  '^  basis.  In  the  high  schools  the  stu- 
jjtents  studied  Latin,  that  they  might  read  the 
writings  of  the  Church  fathers;  rhetoric,  that 
they  might  participate  in  the  polemical  discus- 
sions of  the  age ;  music,  that  they  might  bear  a 
part  in  the  cathedral  ritual.  If  they  learned 
English,  it  was  because  the  earlier  deeds  of  gi: 


I 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  23 

and  bequest,  the  rules  of  the  establishment,  and 
the  chronicles  of  its  history  were  in  the  ver- 
nacular. 

What  they  did  in  the  smaller  schools  we  may 
judge  from  the  deed  of  foundation  of  one  chantry 
in  Berkshire : 

The  chantry  chaplain  shall  teach  the  children  the  alphabet, 
the  Lord's  prayer,  the  salutation  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  the 
apostles'  creed,  and  all  other  things  which  are  necessary  to  en- 
able them  to  assist  the  priest  in  the  celebration  of  the  mass,  to- 
gether with  the  psalm  De  Profundis,  and  the  usual  prayers  for 
the  dead ;  also,  in  English,  the  fourteen  articles  of  faith,  the 
ten  commandments,  the  seven  deadly  sins,  seven  sacraments, 
seven  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  seven  works  of  mercy,  five  bodily 
senses,  and  the  manner  of  confession ;  good  manners,  to  fear 
God  and  keep  His  commandments,  especially  to  refrain  from 
lying,  to  honor  parents,  and  to  serve  God  devoutly  in  this 
church. 

If  any  should  be  apt  and  disposed  to  learn 
grammar,  they  were  to  be  taught.  *^ 

In  this  last  condition  is  the  clew  to  much  in . 
English  history.  These«conyentual  schools  drew 
their  pupils  chiefly  from  the  poorer  classes; 
sifted  them,  selected  the  most  apt,  educated  them 
more  broadly,  first  fitted  them  for  and  then  em- 
ployed them  in  the  higher  services  of  the  Church, 
whence  by  an  easy  transfer  they  mingled  in 
the  statecraft  of  the  realm,  and  often  exerted 
a  profounder  influence  upon  the  destinies  of 
the  nation   than   the  secular   leaders  -who  had 


24:     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

come  from  the  loins  of  nobles,  and  who  had 
reached  their  places  of  power  by  the  favor  of 
kings,  or  had  cut  their  way  to  them  with  their 
swords. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  two  causes  combined 
in  England  to  give  a  new  impulse  to  popular  ed- 
ucation, and  to  divert  it  from  its  old  channels. 
"X^en  the  "  poor  preachers  "  went  over  England, 
scattering  copies  of  WicliFs  Bible  and  the  tracts 
of  his  Lollard  disciples,  they  furnished  for  the 
first  time  since  Alfred's  day  a  motive  to  common 
men  to  learn  to  read.  When  there  were  no 
books,  save  in  college  and  monastic  libraries,  to 
know  how  to  read  was  an  idle  accomplishment. 
Not  so  when  it  was  the  key  with  which  they 
might  unlock  for  themselves  the  storehouse  of 
God's  truth,  and  gain  access  to  spiritual  food  for 
which  the  burning  words  of  the  preachers  had 
everywhere  created  a  hunger.  At  the  same  time 
the  monastic  establishments  had  everywhere 
fallen  into  disrepute.  The  epics  of  Langland 
and  Chaucer,  and  the  more  stirring  songs  and 
ballads  of  hosts  of  obscurer  writers,  reveal  to  us 
what  they  helped  to  create — the  public  sentiment 
of  the  times.  The  whole  fraternity  of  monks 
and  friars  was  denounced  with  scorn  and  del- 
uged with  ridicule.  In  the  Vision  of  Piers  Plough- 
man, Langland  had  said : 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  25 

1  found  there  friars,  all  the  four  orders,  preached  the  people 
for  profit  of  themselves.  The  parish  priest  and  the  pardoner 
part  the  silver  that  the  poor  of  the  parish  should  have.* 

They  were  charged  with  ignorance  and  greed, 
with  gluttony  and  lust,  and  a  gradual  dissolution 
was  going  on  long  before  Henry  VIII  began  his 
wholesale  harrying. 

The  rise  of  the  new  learning  stimulated  a 
work  already  begun,  and  before  Luther's  influ- 
ence was  felt  grammar  schools  were  being  set  up 
all  over  England.  But  after  the  suppression  of 
/the  monasteries  by  Henry,  the  endowment  of 
such  schools  became  almost  a  fashion.  Of  the 
so-called  "  great "  schools  of  England,  Winches- 
ter and  Westminster  had"^  existed  from  time  im- 
memorial and  furnished  a  model  for  later  foun- 
dations ;  Eton  was  founded  in  1440 ;  St.  Paul's 
by  Colet  in  1509 ;  and  in  rapid  succession  Christ's 
Hospital,  the  Merchant  Tailors',  Shrewsbury, 
Rugby,  Harrow,  and  the  Charter-House;  while 
of  lesser  foundations  there  were  still  in  existence 
thirty  years  ago  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
schools  established  before  the  settlement  of  Bos- 
ton. 

This  widespread  popular  enthusiasm  for  edu- 
cation is  something  as  peculiar  as  it  is  interest- 

*  Transposed  and  spelling  modernized.  See  The  Vision, 
11.  115-118  and  161-164. 


26     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

ing.  The  Reformation  in  England  had  leaders, 
but  no  leader.  Encountering  the  virile  egoism 
of  the  Tudors,  no  less  virile  in  Mary  and  Eliza- 
beth than  in  their  father  and  grandfather,  on  its 
religious  side  the  development  of  the  Reforma- 
tion was  arrested,  and  most  of  its  energy  was 
directed  into  political  channels.  There  was  no 
Luther  or  Knox,  no  synod  or  consistory,  to  de- 
cree universal  education,  and  it  was  left  to  pri- 
vate munificence  to  supply  the  want  which  the 
royal  edicts  of  monastic  suppression  had  created. 
The  founders  of  these  endowed  schools  were  of 
all  classes :  men  and  women.  Catholics  and  Prot- 
estants, kings,  dukes  and  baronets,  ecclesiastics 
and  merchants.  The  phenomenon  is  unique. 
There  was  no  concert  of  action — no  plan.  Here 
and  there,  in  the  cities  and  towns,  silently,  one 
by  one,  and  benignly  as  the  stars  in  the  twilight 
blossom  in  the  infinite  meadows  of  heaven,  these 
schools  appeared.  There  was  not  even  uniform- 
ity of  motive.  Some  were  the  outcome  of  selfish- 
ness, as  the  monasteries  had  been;  dying  men 
and  women,  looking  back  over  lives  of  greed  and 
cruelty  and  lust,  and  forward  to  '^adamantine 
chains  and  penal  fires,"  to  "  torture  without  end,'' 
and  "  fiery  deluge  fed  with  ever-burning  sulphur 
unconsumed,''  would  purchase  pardon  and  ob- 
livion for  the  misdeeds  of  life  by  charitable  en- 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  27 

dowment.  The  old  proverb  said,  "He  steals  a 
pig  and  gives  away  the  trotters  for  God's  sake/' 

Sometimes  the  founders  hoped  for  purgatorial 
benefits,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Stopford  Grammar 
School,  where  twice  a  week  the  boys  were  to  go 
with  the  master  to  church  and  recite  the  De  Pro- 
fundis  and  the  other  services  for  the  founder's 
soul  and  the  souls  of  his  father  and  mother. 
Sometimes  a  truer  piety  prompted  the  gift,  as  at 
Kingsbridge,  where  over  the  entrance  is  in- 
scribed, "Lord,  what  I  have  'twas  thou  that 
gavest  me,  and  of  thine  own  this  I  return  to 
thee."  Often  the  motive  was  a  patriotic  one — a 
generous  public  spirit.  The  old  deeds  coruscate 
with  utterances,  quaintly  phrased,  of  the  desire 
to  raise  up  godly  and  learned  men  for  the  Church 
and  the  state.  Again,  sympathetic  charity 
prompted  other  gifts.  Men  who  had  raised 
themselves  to  wealth  and  civic  honor  by  trade 
sought  to  remove  from  the  path  of  the  poor  boys 
of  their  native  towns  the  ignorance  which  had 
impeded  their  own  career. 

As  there  was  variety  of  motive,  so  there  was 
endless  diversity  in  the  terms  of  the  endowments. 
Usually  limited  to  a  prescribed  locality,  some- 
times the  benefits  of  the  gifts  were  confined  to  a 
specified  ixumber  of  boys ;  often  to  poor  men's 
children ;  most  often  to  all  children  without  dis- 


28     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

tinction.  As  to  support — some  called  for  tuition 
fees  from  those  who  could  afford  to  pay ;  many- 
were  wholly  free  to  all,  as  at  Guisboro,  where 
the  deed  of  foundation  decreed  that  the  masters 
should  teach  freely  all  scholars  coming  to  the 
school,  grammar,  honest  manners,  and  godly 
living,  "not  demanding  any  pennji^  of  them  or 
their  parents/^  The  phrase  "  not  demanding  any 
penny  "  had  reference  to  a  custom  peculiar  to  the 
schools  of  northern  England,  and  throws  a  gleam 
of  side  light  across  the  manners  of  the  age.  In 
some  of  the  endowments  the  masters  are  to  teach 
freely,  making  no  charge  to  the  parents  "  except 
cock-pence  only,'^  or  "except  potation-pence/^ 
Cock-baiting  was  a  part  of  the  annual  routine 
in  the  grammar  schools  of  Yorkshire,  Lanca- 
shire, and  some  other  of  the  more  northern  coun- 
ties, and  it  was  almost  universal  in  France  as 
well.  The  head  master  furnished  the  cock,  pre- 
sided over  the  sport,  and  gave  an  *  entertainment 
to  the  children  and  parents.  On  Shrove  Tuesday 
the  cock  was  tied  to  a  post  in  a  pit  and  pelted 
with  sticks.  If  a  boy  killed  the  cock  it  became 
his  property ;  if  not  killed,  the  master  took  it. 
To  provide  the  cock  he  received  a  small  gratuity 
from  the  scholars;  this  was  cock-pence.  Some- 
times the  master  made  a  drinking  festival  for  all 
the  scholars  several  times  a  year,  and  for  this  the 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  29 

scholars  furnished  potation-pence.  The  fees  con- 
tinued to  be  exacted  long  after  the  practices  had 
been  abandoned,  and  in  large  schools  supplied  a 
liberal  perquisite. 

The  schools  were  called  grammar  schools  be- 
j^ause  Latin  was  the  staple.  But  other  subjects 
were  sometimes  specified.  At  Enfield  the  in- 
struction was  to  be  in  the  arts  of  grammar  and 
arithmetic.  At  St.  Olave's,  in  Southwark,  the 
school  was  ^^  for  the  education  and  instruction  of 
children  of  the  parish,  as  well  of  rich  as  of  poor, 
liberally  and  prosperously  in  grammar,  in  acci- 
dence, in  other  lower  books,  and  in  writing ;  also 
in  the  Latin  and  English  tongues.""  At  Lewis- 
ham  was  to  be  taught  "  Latin,  Greek,  and  He- 
brew free,""  and  "  writing,  ciphering  and  accounts 
on  payment  of  two  shillings  a  year.""  At  St. 
Dunstan"s  the  instructioji  was  to  be  in  grammat- 
ical science,  and  the  young  ones  in  spelling  until 
they  are  fit  to  learn  grammar;  but  the  schools 
which  provided  for  elementary  instruction  in  ad- 
dition to  Latin  were  few.  A  part  of  the  schools 
were  to  provide  only  the  rudiments ;  of  the  foun- 
dation of  most  of  them  no  records  remain.  In 
general  it  was  assumed  that  the  children  would 
be  able  to  read  and  write  before  entering  these 
schools.  This  assumption  is  of  importance,  as 
showing  the  existence  of  opportunities  more  or 


30     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

less  general  for  previous  education.  This  oppor- 
I  tunity  was  furnished  by  humble  parish  school- 
masters and  village  dames,  who  eked  out  a  scanty 
subsistence  by  guiding  the  unsteady  steps  of  the 
"potties  and  incipients^^  toward  that  hill  of 
learning  up  which  there  is  no  royal  road.  To 
such  a  humble  seat  doubtless  went  the  infant 
Shakespeare,  "a  whining  schoolboy,  with  his 
satchel  and  shining  morning  face,  creeping  like 
snail  unwillingly  to  school '' ;  while  at  the  Free 
Grammar  School  at  Stratford  he  acquired  that 
"  small  Latin  and  less  Greek ''  which  Ben  Jonson 
says  comprised  his  erudition. 

Although  the  charters  rarely  made  any  dis- 
tinction of  sex,  it  was  generally  understood  that 
boys  alone  would  go  to  the  grammar  schools. 

The  basis  of  these  schools  was  distinctly  re- 
ligious. This  is  shown  by  express  provisions  for 
religious  instruction,  as  at  Chester,  where  the 
founder  says : 

Mine  intent  in  founding  this  school  is  specially  to  increase 
knowledge  and  worship  of  God  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
good  Christian  life  and  manners  in  the  children,  and  for  that 
intent  I  will  that  the  children  learn  the  catechism. 

At  the  end  he  says : 

Charge  the  master  that  he  teach  always  that  is  best. 

The  religious  trend  of  the  movement  is  still  more 
clearly  shown  in  the  terms  used  to  describe  the 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  31 

masters  to  be  employed :  "  Bachelor  of  arts  and 
in  holy  orders";  ^^  a  priest  cnnning  in  gram- 
mar '' ;  "  a  priest  to  say  mass  and  to  keep  schooF' ; 
''  a  learned  schoolmaster,  a  priest  if  possible " ; 
"a  university  man,  graduate,  and  a  preacher/' 
Sometimes  the  requirement  was  laconic :  ^^  A  fit 
man/'  I  know  of  nothing  in  all  educational  lit- 
erature more  profound  in  philosophy  nor  more 
beautiful  in  expression  than  this  in  the  statutes 
of  the  Surrey  school :  The  master — 

shall  be  a  man  of  wise,  sociable,  and  loving  disposition ;  wise 
and  of  good  experience  to  discern  the  nature  of  every  several 
child,  to  work  upon  their  disposition  for  the  greatest  advantage, 
benefit,  and  comfort  of  the  child ;  to  learn  with  the  love  of  his 
hook. 

Comparing  the  effect  of  the  Reformation  upon 
elementary  instruction  in  England  with  its  in- 
fluence on  the  Continent,  we  are  struck  by  the 
peculiarly  English  character  of  the  new  move- 
ment. All  English  institutions — political,  re- 
ligious, social—are  symbolized  by  one  of  i|;s  great 
cathedrals.  If  the  traveler,  at  once  charmed 
and  awed,  asks  the  garrulous  verger  when  the 
minster  was  built,  he  is  told :  "  It  never  was  built ; 
it  was  always  building.  Even  now  there  are 
workmen  on  yonder  scaffold. ^^  As  he  looks 
about  him  and  views  the  pile  from  different 
standpoints,  he  sees  that  no  period  in  architec- 
ture can  claim  it  for  its  own.     The  plan  seems 


32     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Norman,  and  the  massive  walls  and  columns,  the 
semicircular  arches  and  the  great  square  central 
tower  praise  that  daring  race  who  from  freeboot- 
ing  pirates  became  the  great  church-builders  of 
Europe.  Another  view  changes  the  whole  im- 
pression. All  is  Gothic.  Here  are  the  slender, 
graceful  columns,  the  exquisitely  carved  capitals 
and  moldings;  overhead  are  the  pointed  arches 
and  vaults,  and  yonder  are  the  mullioned  win- 
dows of  the  Early  English.  But  there  is  Gothic 
and  Gothic.  One  star  differeth  from  another 
star  in  glory.  That  transept  is  not  Norman,  nor 
Early  English.  It  is  light,  airy,  delicate;  its 
pinnacles  and  flying  buttresses,  its  traceried 
windows,  are  marvels  of  design  and  miracles  of 
execution.  Another  turn,  and  the  vision  of 
beauty  fades.  There  is  only  the  stiflf,  formal, 
perpendicular  style  of  the  Tudors,  and  disap- 
pointment becomes  disgust  as  in  the  choir  or 
chapel  one  sees  the  utterly  absurd  designs  of  the 
later  Renaissance.  Most  interesting  of  all  is  the 
discovery,  in  some  obscure  place,  of  a  fragment 
of  a  wall  or  some  deep-laid  substructure,  that 
tell  that  Cinquecentist,  Gothic,  and  Norman,  all 
built  upon  an  earlier  Saxon  foundation. 

The  British  Constitution  tells  the  same  story. 
The  revolutions  have  claimed  to  be  but  restora- 
tions.    Every  king  has  sworn  to  rule  by  what 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  33 

Magna  Charta  calls  "  the  law  of  the  land/'  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror  ruled  as  the  lawful  suc- 
cessor of  the  Saxon  Edward,  and  every  Norman 
king  swore  to  keep  "  the  good  laws  of  Edward  "" ; 
as  Canute  the  Dane  and  his  Gemot  at  Oxford 
had  reaffirmed  the  laws  of  Edgar;  as  Edgar's 
legislation  found  its  sanction  in  reproducing  the 
still  earlier  laws  of  Ina. 

So  with  the  English  Church.  There  has  been 
no  break  in  the  continuity  of  her  history. 
Changes  there  have  been,  great  and  many — 
now  additions  and  now  mutilations ;  it  has  taken 
on  new  beauties  and  new  graces;  but  to-day  it 
is  the  Church  which  Augustin  set  up  under  the 
protection  of  the  good  Queen^  Berth'a.  ; 

And  the  English  language,  if  not  identical 
with  that  which  Hengist  and  Horsa  spoke  to 
their  corsair  followers  in  the  isle  of  Thanet,  in- 
cludes and  envelops  that  as  the  vast  cathedral 
includes  and  envelops  its  earlier  Saxon  precursor. 

Thus  deep-seated  and  instinctive  in  the  Eng- 
lish mind  is  reverence  for  the  past;  so  that  the 
changes  which  have  occurred  in  its  institutions 
are  like  those  great  secular  changes  in  the  earth's 
relations  which  can  only  be  measured  by  cen- 
turies. . 

When  the  monasteries  were  swept  away,  and 
with  them  those  provisions  for  education  which 


3i     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  medisBval  Church  had  organized  and  sus- 
tained, it  never  occurred  to  any  one  that  there 
was  an  opportunity  to  found  a  new  system  of 
education.  With  characteristic  English  direct- 
ness and  simplicity,  and  English  conservatism  as 
well,  they  took  the  means  already  at  hand  and 
multiplied  them.  There  had  been  a  few'gram- 
mar  schools  from  time  immemorial ;  they  would 
substitute  these  for  the  defunct  Church  schools. 
So  they  honored  the  past  while  serving  the  pres- 
\  ent  and  the  future.  Nor  did  they  think  of  modi- 
fying greatly  the  old  curriculum.  There  was  no 
philosophy  of  education.  They  were  working 
wholly  from  a  practical  standpoint.  The  age 
was  characterized,  as  we  have  said,  by  intense 
intellectual  activity.  There  came  to  be  a  rever- 
ence for  learning  which  may  seem  to  us,  and  per- 
haps was,  almost  superstition.  But  the  mistake 
was  natural.  They  saw  that  in  the  competition 
of  the  new  age  the  men  of  learning  were  leading, 
although  the  learning  was  chiefly  Latin.  If 
they  thought  the  learning  was  the  cause  of  the 
success,  rather  than  the  power  gained  in  the 
process,  we  can  not  wonder,  for  they  were  plain 
people. 

They  made  no  mistake  in  what  they  saw. 
The  impulse  was  a  generous  one,  and  to  it  was 
largely  due  the  steady  progress  of  the  English 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  35 

middle  class  in  social  and  political  power.  But 
the  ruling  class  in  England  never  rose  to  the  idea 
of  universal  education.  They  made  poor-laws 
'  and  set  up  workhouses  in  every  parish,  and  im- 
posed taxes  to  support  the  paupers,  when  the 
streams  of  charity  which  had  flowed  from  the 
monastic  establishments  were  dried  up,  but  they 
made  no  such  national  provisions  to  supply  the 
intellectual  wants.  Cornpulsory  poor-houses,  vol- 
untary schools,  was  England's  answer  to  the 
question.  After  the  monasteries — what  ? 

But  a  question  has  arisen  recently  which  de- 
mands more  specific  examination.  Mr.  Motley,  in 
his  enthusiasm  for  Holland,  suggested  that  the 
people  of  New  England  probably  were  more  in- 
debted to  Holland  than  to  England  for  their 
school  system.  Taking  their  cue  from  this,  other 
writers  have  amplified  this '  statement,  and  some 
have  gone  so  far  as'to  declare  that  Massachusetts 
not  only  derived  her  school  ideas  from  the  Dutch, 
but  received  them  by  waj^of  New  Amsterdam^ 
The  Kne  of  argument  followed  bv  all  thesa 
writers  is  ^Eliat  free  public  schools  were  universal 
in  iJolland,  while  the  educational  opportunities  in 
England  were  of  the  scantiest  kind.  The  people 
of  Holland  are  represented  as  universally  edu- 
cated, while  the  people  of  England  were  univer- 
sally illiterate.     A  closer  and  wider  examination 


36     MASSACHUSETTS  PI  BLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

of  the  conditions  would  have  shown  that  these 
opinions  were  only  guesses,  with  no  historical 
basis.  What  England  did  we  have  already  seen. 
It  is  probable  that  Holland  at  this  time  was 
superior  to  all  other  countries  in  the  quality  of 
the  education  it  furnished ;  but  the  difference  is 
not  as  great  as  these  modern  partisans  would 
have  us  believe. 

The  Synod  of  1586  had  ordered  that  schools 
should  be  everywhere  established  by  the  Church 
authorities.  In  1618  the  Synod  of  Dort  decreed 
that  schools  for  instructing  the  young  in  Chris- 
tian doctrines  should  be  provided  not  only  in 
the  cities,  but  also  in  towns  and  country  places, 
where  heretofore  none  had  existed.  The  schools 
which  the  earlier  Synod  had  been  instrumental 
in  establishing  had  been  confined  to  the  cities, 
but  the  city  schools,  at  least  the  elementary  ones, 
were  of  no  very  high  order.  A  historian  says  of 
them: 

The  method  of  education  in  children's  schools  was  of  the 
rudest  and  most  unscientific  kind.  They  were  kept  either  hy- 
men or  women,  and  many  of  the  latter  could  not  even  read. 
Before  the  door  a  pattern  sheet  written  by  the  master's  own 
hand  had  to  be  hung  out,  describing,  under  a  penalty,  what  he 
was  fit  to  teach,  and  in  addition  sometimes  a  signboard  with 
the  word  "  School "  was  exhibited,  along  with  a  painting  repre- 
senting the  schoolmaster  himself  in  the  midst  of  his  pupils. 
Occasionally  a  rod  and  ferule  were  painted  on  the  signboard, 
with  some  appropriate  motto,  such  as  "  Cheap  Wisdom,"  etc. 


THE  EARL¥' LEGISLATION.  37 

The  middle  and  poorer  kinds  of  children's  schools  in  the  Dutch 
towns  consisted  generally  of  low,  small  apartments,  on  the  sec- 
ond story,  with  an  outlook  on  a  dirty  lane  or  courtyard,  and 
sometimes  evien  of  a  damp  cellar.  In  many  cases  there  were 
separate  apartments  for  the  children  of  the  riciier  and  poorer 
classes.  Oftentimes  the  school  apartment  served  as  a  sleeping 
or  sitting  room,  and  frequently  the  mistress  kept  a  small  shop 
for  the  sale  of  dainties  which  the  children  purchased.  If  she 
could  not  read,  she  merely  drilled  the  children  from  memory 
in  the  alphabet,  the  Lord's  prayer,  the  ten  commandments,  and 
the  creed,  until  the  children  could  repeat  them  by  heart,  with- 
out having  learned  to  read  them.* 

These  Dutch  elementary  schools  are  thus  seen 
to  resemble  in  all  essential  particulars  the  dame 
schools  of  England.  Long  before  the  Synod  of 
1586  had  issued  its  decree,  England  was  dotted  all 
over  with  free  grammar  schools.  Twenty-two 
years  before,  Ascham  had  published  his  School- 
master. Five  years  before,  in  1581,  Doctor  Mul- 
caster,  head  master  of  Merchant  Taylor's  School, 
one  of  those  endowed  grammar  schools,  had  pub- 
lished his  book  on  education,  called  by  the  quaint 
name  Positions,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
books  on  education  ever  written  by  an  English- 
man. He  depicts  a  universal  desire  of  parents  of 
all  classes  to  have  their  children  educated,  and 
deprecates  it,  and  argues  at  length  in  favor  of 
limiting  the  higher  education  to  a  selected  few-/ 
the  gifted  ones.     This  was  fifty  years  before  the 

*  Geddes's  Life  of  John  De  Witt,  vol.  i,  pp.  33,  34. 


38     MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Boston  emigration.  Surely,  these  New  England 
people  had  no  need  to  go  to  Holland  to  find  in- 
spiration and  impulse. 

"When,  in  1585,  that  famous  company  of  Dutch 
ambassadors  came  to  London  to  offer  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  new  nation  to  Elizabeth,  accom- 
plished as  many  of  them  were,  Elizabeth  herself 
was  more  than  their  peer  in  polite  learning  as 
well  as  in  statecraft,  and  the  courtiers  who  sur- 
rounded her  on  that  brilliant  occasion — Walsing- 
ham  and  Leicester  and  Burleigh  and  Sidney — 
were  as  learned  as  they  were  brave,  and  not  a 
whit  inferio'ii  even  to  Motley^s  hero,  John  of 
Barneveldt^y 

J^  But  wl5m  of  the  Dutch  on  Manhattan  Island  ? 
Did  Boston  learn  of  them  ?  Historians  of  New 
York  are  fond  of  claiming  that  in  New  Amster- 
dam there  was  a  free  public  school  before  Bos^^on 
called  Philemon  Pormort,  and  they  point  to  the 
documents  which  they  claim  show  the  univer- 
sality of  education.     What  are  the  facts  ? 

In  1621  the  Dutch  West  India  Company^ 
under  whose  auspices  the  country  was  settled 
and  by  which  it  was  governed,  bound  itself  to 
maintain  good  and  fit  preachers,  schoolmasters, 
and  comforters  of  the  sick.  In  1629,  in  its 
Charter  of  Liberties,  it  laid  upon  the  patroons 
and  colonists  an  obligation  to  provide  ministers 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  39 

and  schoolmasters.  In  1633  there  came  over 
with  the  new  Governor,  William  Kieft — Irving's 
William  the  Testy — one  Adam  Roelandsen,  a 
schoolmaster.*  He  was  appointed  by  the  Classis'' 
of  Amsterdam,  paid  by  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company,  and  kept  a  school  under  the  superyi- 
sion  and  management  of  the  deacons  of  the  I^utoli-— ^^ 
Reformed  Church  in  the  colony.  That  school  has 
been  in  existence  ever  since.  It  antedates  our 
Boston  Latin  School  by  two  years.  But  it  has 
never  been  a  public  school  in  the  Boston  sense. 
It  is  to-day  what  it  has  always  been,  a  school  for 
the  children  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  in 
New  York.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  was  ever  free  to 
any  others,  for  there  were  private  schools  coex- 
isting with  it,  almost  from  the  beginning.  In 
1649,  two  years  after  our  school  law,  the  people  j3:::> 
of  New  Amsterdam  complained  that  no  school- 
house  had  yet  been  built ;  that  "  the  school  was 
kept  very  irregularly  by  this  one  and  that,  ac- 
cording to  his  fancy,  as  long  as  he  thinks  fit '' ; 
and  after  this  school  had  been  in  existence,, 
twenty-six  years,  in  1659,  the  people,  still  depend;^ 
ent  on  the  foreign  company,  humbly  represent 
that  there  is  no  school  in  the  colony  where  their 
children  can  learn  Latin ;  that  there  is  no  such 

*  Dunshee's  History  of  the  School  of  the  Reformed  Protest- 
ant Dutch  Church  in  the  City  of  New  York. 


40     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

school  nearer  than  New  England ;  that  they  can 
not  afford  to  hire  a  Latin  master  from  New  Eng- 
land, or  to  send  their  children  thither ;  so  they 
pray  the  honorable  company  to  send  a  man 
capable  of  teaching  Latin.  The  company  gra- 
ciously acceded  to  their  request,  and  classical 
learning  at  last  found  a  place  among  the  good 
burghers  of  New  Amsterdam.  But  before  this 
time  there  were  half  a  score  of  flourishing  Latin 
schools  in  Massachusetts,  and  seventeen  classes 
had  been  graduated  from  Harvard  College.* 
^  Coming  back,  now,  from  this  extended  sur- 
vey of  education  in  the  Old  World  to  answer  the 
question,  '^  Where  did  the  Massachusetts  Puri- 
tans get  their  ideas  of  popular  education  ?  '^  we 
observe  that  they  did  not  evolve  those  ideas  from 
their  own  consciousness.  Neither  the  compulsory 
policy  nor  the  arguments  by  which  it  was  sup- 
ported were  of  their  own  originating.  Neither 
were  they  pioneers  in  the  scope  of  the  education 
which  they  proposed.  All  these  matters  had  been 
under  discussion  for  a  century  in  the  literature 
of  the  Reformation.  Their  neighbors  in  Scot- 
land, and  on  the  Continent  had  already  reduced 

*  For  an  extended  discussion  of  the  relative  claims  of 
Massachusetts  and  New  York,  see  articles  Public  School  Pio- 
neering, in  The  Educational  Review,  1892,  April,  June,  October; 
1893,  March. 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  41 

their  principles  to  practice,  while  in  the   ele- 
mentary and  grammar  schools  of  England  they 
had   themselves   received    an    education    whicty 
they  would  make  universal.    Bu^  when  we  say     " 
thatjthe  colonists  of  Massachusetts  brought  from 
the  Oid  World  their  ideas  of  education  and  of 
schools,/ we  have   not   stripped    them    of   their 
glory,  jffn  Germany,  in  Holland,  and  in  Scot- 
land sckools  were  imposed  upon  the  people  by 
authority.    The  compulsion  came  from  princes, 
synods,  parliaments.     But  in  Massachusetts  the 
people   established    the  educ^ional  system  for  . 
themselves  and  their  posterity.]  1  Edward  Everett 
declared  that  the  Massachusetts  \ssembly  which — 
appropriated  £400  to  found  Harvard  College  w^»gr 
the  first  body  in  which  the  people  by  their  repfre- 
sentatives  ever  gave  their  own  money  to  found  a    ' 
place  of  education.! 

fiVIore  than  this,  Germany,  Holland,  Scotland, 
anoSEngland  were  old  communities^^  The  people 
were  comfortably  settled  in  ancestral  homes. 
They  were  worshiping  in  churches  rich  with  the 
tributes  of  mediaeval  piety,  and  hallowed  by  the 
sacraments  of  centuries.  Social  and  domestic 
relations  were  crystallized  into  shape  by  im- 
memorial customs.  Industries  were  established 
and  the  currents  of  trade  were  in  the  main  flow- 
ing in  channels  worn  long  before.    While  great 


42     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

political  questions  were  still  in  agitation,  the  or- 
dinary course  of  civil  administration  was  settled, 
and  for  each  nation  there  was  a  common  law 
whose  precedents  were  hoary  with  age,  and  un- 
der whose  shelter  the  people  found  a  satisfactory 
measure  of  security.  What  a  contrast  to  all  this 
did  Massachusetts  present  in  1647!  But  a  few 
yea^ibefore,  their  homes  were  of  logs,  and  their 
metropolitan  church  was  plastered  with  mud  and 
roofed  with  straw.  They  were  clearing  lands, 
building  roads  and  bridges,  mills  and  fish-weirs. 
They  were  exploring  the  wilderness  for  new  sites 
for  settlement,  and  searching  for  new  resources 
to  develop.  All  social  relations  were  demanding 
readjustment  under  the  new  conditions.  New 
problems  were  constantly  arising  in  Church  and 
state.  The  familiar  common  law  needed  to  be 
supplemented  by  much  special  legislation,  which, 
though  homely,  was  essential  to  the  good  order  of 
the  community.  More  perplexing  than  all  this 
were  the  questions  forced  upon  them  by  intruders 
and  dissentients ;  and  outside  of  all  were  the  per- 
petual menaces  to  their  very  existence  from  the 
savages  around  them,  and  from  their  ecclesias- 
tical and  political  enemies  across  the  water. 

Herein  is  the  superabounding  glory  of  these 
men;  not  that  they  had  convictions — for  these 
they  shared  with  a  great  multitude — but  that  they 


THE  EARLY  LEGISLATION.  43 

had  the  courage  of  their  convictions,  and  that 
that  courage  mounted  with  the  occasion.  Not 
the  pressure  of  material  needs,  not  poverty,  not 
domestic  nor  foreign  complications,  not  fightings 
within  nor  fears  without,  not  any  or  all  of  these 
blinded  them  for  a  moment  to  the  necessity  of 
educating  their  children,  nor  hindered  them  for 
a  moment  in  making  the  completest  provision 
for  it.  From  the  hour  in  which  they  set  foot  in- 
Massachusetts,  they  felt  that  they  had  a  country ; 
and  they  began  to  plan  for  posterity  before  the 
grass  was  yet  green  on  the  graves  of  the  earliest 
victims  of  the  first  New  England  winter,  who,  as 
^_Cotton  Mather  said  of  the  sweet  Lady  Arbella 
Johnson,  ^^took  New  England  in  their  way  to 
heaven.'^  When  we  consider  the  provision  for 
education  made-  during  the  first  .seventeen  years 
of  the  history  of  this  commonwealth,,  we  honor 
the  fathers  for  their  faith,  their  patriotism,  their 
courage,  and  their  liberality,  more  even  than  for 
the  largeness  of  their  views  and  the  profound 
sagacity  of  their  plans. 


LECTURE  IL 

SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION. 

Having  discerned  the  foundations  which,  the 
fathers  laid  for  their  educational  system,  we 
come  now  to  see  what  manner  of  structure  they 
built  upon  it. 

In  their  theory  of  education  they  were  in  line 
with  the  foremost  of  the  reformers,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  this  line  was  far  in  advance  of  the 
existing  practice  at  the  time  of  their  expatria- 
tion. Universal  opportunity  for  education  was 
the  utmost  that  even  the  charitable  founders  of 
the  endowed  schools  aimed  to  secure  by  their 
gift. 

The  Massachusetts  Puritans  went  further,  and 
decreed  universal  education,  but  when  they  came 
to  provide  the  means  for  such  education  they  set 
up  such  schools  as  they  had  been  familiar  with. 
Bryce  has  said,  "  Everything  which  has  power  to 
win  the  obedience  and  respect  of  men  must  have 
its  roots  deep  in  the  past.''  As  the  student  of 
our  political  institutions  is  struck  by  the  fact 

.44 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  45 

that  their  founders  broke  with  the  past  so  little, 
the  student  of  our  educational  history  observes 
the  same  fact,  and  finds  that  the  early  schools  of 
!N"ew  England  are  studied  be«^-  in  <^1^'  F-^^gl^^^^       1 

When  the  lawmakers  of  1647  spoke  of  gram- 
mar schools,  they  meant  such  schools  as  they  had 
already  started,  and  these  were  such  as  they  had 
been  educated  in  at  home.  Winthrop  came  from 
Groton,  in  Sii^ffolk.  At  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  close 
by,  was  a  free  grammar  school  founded  by  Ed- 
ward in  1553.  At  Eye,  in  the  same  county,  was 
one  founded  before  1556 ;  while  at  Sudbury  .there 
was  another,  founded  by  one  William  Wood  a 
year  before  Columbus  discovered  America. 

John  Cotton  came  from  old  Boston.  There 
was  a  free  grammar  school,  and  Cotton,  a  few 
years  before,  had  been  one  of  a  committee  to 
select  an  usher  for  it.  Endicott,  of  Salem,  came 
from  Dorchester.  There  was  a  school  founded 
in  1579,  "a  free  school  with  a  learned  master 
for  children  of  all  degrees."  Dudley,  of  Rox- 
bury,  came  from  Northampton.  There  was  a 
school,  founded  in  1541,  to  teach  boys  who  de- 
sired to  learn,  freely. 

Hooker,  of  Cambridge,  who  led  his  flock 
through  the  wilderness  to  the  Connecticut,  came 
from  Chelmsford,  in  Essex.  There,  too,  was  one 
of    the  good   Edward's  free    grammar    schools. 


46     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

founded  in  1551.  At  Halsted  and  Colchestei, 
too,  in  the  same  county,  were  similar  schools. 
From  the  neighborhood  of  these  came  most  of 
tl^e  early  settlers  of  Cambridge. 

In  view  of  these  facts  it  is  amusing  to  read,  in 
Mr.  Douglas  Campbell's  book  on  the  Puritans, 
that  in  the  absence  of  any  schools  in  England 
the  Puritans,  before  their  emigration  to  Massa- 
chusetts, must  have  educated  themselves  and 
their  children. 

The  statement  is  frequently  made  that  Massa- 
chusetts, by  its  law  of  1647,  established  a  system 
of  free  public  schools — the  first  in  the  world. 
The  colonists  did  establish  a  system  of  schools ; 
they  were  public  schools,  and  many  of  them  were 
free  schools;  but,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
there  was  at  first  no  system  of  free  public 
schools,  because  the  law  made  public  support 
permissive  rather  than  compulsory- 
Schools  had  been  begun  in  nearly  all  the 
towns  before  1647,  and  after  that  date  new 
schools  were  added  as  the  necessity  arose.  With 
perhaps  a  single  exception,  these  were  all  public 
schools — the  people's  schools.  The  initiative  was 
taken  by  the  people  as  citizens — taken  in  town 
meeting  and  recorded  in  the  town  records.  The 
town  voted  to  have  the  school ;  the  town  deter- 
mined the  grade  of  the  school;  the  town  chose 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  47 

tTie  master  and  fixed  his  compensation ;  the  town, 
through  its  officers,  inducted  him  into  office,  and 
arranged  all  the  details  of  the  school  economy. 

This  was  all  done  as  a  matter  of  convenienc/B, 
not  of  right — not  at  all  with  any  conscious  refer- 
ence to  any  theory  of  local  autonomy.  It  is  im- 
portant to  dwell  upon  this  point.  There  has 
grown  up  an  exaggerated  notion  of  the  rights 
of  towns,  especially  in  regard  to  schools.  In 
Massachusetts,  towns  have  no  rights,  and  never 
had  any,  save  such  as  have  been  conferred  by 
statutes. 

De  Tocqueville,  in  his  study  of  American  De- 
mocracy, was  deceived  by  appearances  into  see- 
ing an  analogy  between  the  Federal  Union  and 
the  individual  States.  He  assumed  that  the  State 
is  an  aggregation  of  units — the  towns  being  the 
units,  as  the  Federation  is  an  aggregation  of 
States.  This  is  not  true,  legally  or  chronologic- 
ally. The  cowns  were  not  first  settled,  then 
grouped  into  the  State.  The  State  was  first,  as  a 
legal  entity.  The  territory  was  the  territory  of 
the  State,  and  the  supreme  authority  was  in  the 
State.  Instead  of  the  towns  being  the  source  of 
power,  and  delegating  power  to  the  State,  as  the 
State  has  done  to  the  United  States,  the  towns 
are  but  creations  of  the  State,  and  under  its 
sanction  "  live  and  move  and  have  their  being." 


48     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  State,  or  the  General  Courts  which  was  the 
State,  deemed  the  towns  most  suitable  agents  to 
carry  out  its  policy  of  uiriversal  education.  The 
towns  were  required  to  iprovide  ^/^  ools,  as  they 
were  required  to  provide  churches,  and  to  keep 
watch  and  ward  against  the  Indians. 

While  the  schools  were  thus  public  schools, 
their  peculiarly  English  character  is  most  strong- 
ly marked  in  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
supxDorted.  We  notice  the  absence  of  uniformity, 
and  we  are  impressed  by  the  fact  that,  at  first, 
direct  taxation  for  their  support  was  not  uni- 
versal. 

Of  seven  grammar  schools  established  before 
1647,  no  two  were  supported  in  just  the  same 
way.  In  Boston  there  was  first  a  subscription  by 
the  wealthy  citizens.  Sir  Henry  Yane  and  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop  heading  the  paper ;  *  then  there 
was  the  income  from  leased  town  lands  ;t  then 
incomes  from  funds  left  by  will  to  the  school; 
and,  lastly,  when  there  was  not  enough  from  all 


*  Second  Report  of  Boston  Record  Commissioners,  p.  160, 
note. 

f  The  appropriation  of  income  from  leased  town  lands,  from 
fishing  privileges,  etc.,  common  in  the  early  history  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts schools,  resembles  the  appropriations  for  schools 
from  "  the  common  good  "  in  Scotland  in  the  sixteenth  and  sev- 
enteenth centuries. — See  Grant's  History  of  the  Burgh  Schools 
in  Scotland,  p.  456. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  49 

these  sources  to  make  up  the  master's  salary  of 
£50,  a  town  rate  was  levied  for  the  balance. 
(  There  is  nowhcT-e  any  reference  to  tuition  fees. 

Of  Camb^^J,ge,  we  ead  in  New  England^'s 
First  Fruits,  "And  by  the  side  of  the  college  a 
fair  grammar  school  for  the  training  of  young 
scholars  and  fitting  them  for  academical  learning, 
that  still  as  they  are  judged  ripe  they  may  be  re- 
ceived into  the  college.""  * 

This  school  seems  to  have  been  supported 
wholly  by  tuition  fees.  In  its  earliest  years  the 
only  public  grant  is  an  appropriation  by  the 
Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies,  to  pay  for 
the  instruction  of  some  Indian  youths,  f  But  in 
1648,  the  school  being  small  and  the  master's  in- 
come consequently  scanty,  the  town  sold  some 
land  for  his  benefit,  and  six  years  later  levied  a 
rate  to  help  him  out.  J 

In  Charlestown  *  three  sources  of  income  are 
apparent  (1647)  :  the  rent  of  some  islands,  the 
income  from  the  Mystic  weir,  and  a  rate. 

In  Dorchester  II  there  was  the  income  from 
leased    lands   on   Thomson's    Island,  which  the 


*  Coll.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  i,  First  series,  p.  247. 
f  Paige's  History  of  Cambridge,  p.  366. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  367. 

*  Frothingham's  History  of  Charlestown,  pp.  115,  116. 
II  History  of  Dorchester,  Boston,  1859,  p.  420. 


50     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

General  Court  had  given  to  the  town.  And 
there  were  bequests  by  generous  people;  there 
is  nothing  at  first  to  indicate  either  tuition  fees 
or  a  town  rate.  It  was  purely  an  endowed  school, 
but  endowed  by  the  people  themselves. 

In  Salem,*  parents  subscribed  as  they  were 
able  and  felt  disposed,  and  the  town  by  rate  pro- 
vided for  the  children  of  the  poor. 
Vln  Ipswich  f  the  grammar  school  was  sup- 
ported by  income  from  rents,  lands,  annuities, 
and  tuition  fees  to  make  up  the  needed  amount. 
The  town  has  still  some  school  income  from  these 
ancient  leases. 

In  Roxbury  J  the  grammar  school  was  never 
public;  the  wealthier  inhabitants  founding  the 
school,  binding  their  estates  for  its  perpetual 
support,  only  their  own  children  receiving  the 
benefit  of  the  school  f reejy. 

In  all  these  cases  tlj^  town  rate— -the  general 
tax — was  used  only  |d  supplement  the  other 
sources  of  income,  to  eke  out  otherwise  too 
scanty  resources.  There  seems  to  have  been  no 
objection  to  the  rate,  but  the  people  naturally 
followed  the  customs  with  which  they  had  been 

*  Felt's  Annals  of  Salem,  i,  p.  164. 
f  Felt's  History  of  Ipswich,  Essex,  and  Hamilton,  p.  83. 
X  Dillaway's  History  of  the  Oram  mar  School  in  Roxbury, 
pp.  7,  8. 


SCHOOLS   BEFORE  THE   REVOLUTION.  51 

familiar  at  home.  School  lands,  school  funds, 
and  school  fees  were  traditional  ideas,  so  they 
started  in  the  old  way,  and  in  many  cases  con- 
tinued in  that  way  for  more  than  a  century. 

Dedham,  early  in  its  history — in  1644 — set  up  / 
a  free  school,  and  built  a  house  for  it,  and  sup- 
ported it  by  a  general  tax.*    It  furnished  element- 1 
ary  instruction  in  English,  writing,  and  the  art  \ 
of  arithmetic.     The  tax  was  levied  semiannually,    I 
and  the  master's   pay  was  two  thirds  in  wheat    I 
and  the  other  third  in  other  corn.     In  extreme 
weather  the  master  was  permitted  to  keep  the 
school  in  his  own  house,  and  in  the  heat  of  sum- 
mer he  might  use  the  meeting-house,  on  condi- 
tion that  he  left  it  clean  and  mended  all  the  win-      \ 
dows  that  his  boys  broke. 

But  the  conditions  in  New  England  tended  to 
make  the  schools  everywhere,  sooner  or  later, 
wholly  free  and  supported  by  tax.  Common 
lands,  available  as  sources  of  town  income,  were 
gradually  sold.  Population  increased  more  rap- 
idly  than  the  income  from  testamentary  proper- 
ties, so  that  the  needs  of  the  schools,  in  most 
instances,  outran  their  fixed  revenues.  Private 
benevolence  lacked  incentive  when  law  made 
schools  compulsory,  and  atown  rate  could  be 

*  Dedham  Historical  Register,  vol.  i,  p.  86. 


52     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

depended  upon  to  provide  means  for  their  sup- 
port. Tuition  fees  from  the  rich  and  free  tuition 
for  the  poor  made  class  distinctions  too  promi- 
nent in  a  new  society,  where  in  church  and  state 
all  were  equal.  Support  by  town  rate  was  sim- 
pler, easier,  and  more  uniform  than  by  any  other 
method. 

All  these  causes,  peculiar  to  the  colonial  con- 
ditions, tended  to  change  the^  English  schools  to 
American  schools  as  we  know  them  to-day.  The 
change  came  more  rapidly  in  some  cases  than  in 
others;  less  rapidly  in  the  commercial  towns 
than  in  the  newer  agricultural  communities. 
Each  locality  worked  out  its  own  problem 
in  its  own  way,  until  all  at  last  reached  the 
same  result  under  the  law  which  made  sup- 
port by  town  rate  permissible  but  not  compul- 
sory. 

When  this  result  had  been  reached,  about  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Massachusetts 
stood  alone  in  the  world.  Excepting  New  Hamp- 
shire, which  was  so  closely  identified  with  Mas- 
sachusetts as  to  be  thought  of  with  it,  no  other 
State  in  the  Union^had  a  free-school  system. 
Connecticut  had  public  ^  schools,  but  they  were 
not  free  until  later.  New  York  had  no  public- 
school  system  of  any  kind  at  this  time,  and  had 
no  free-school  system  until  a  century  later.     The 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  53 

European  systems  furnislied  free  schooling  only 
to  the  poor. 

It  is  significant  that  in  many  of  the  towns  the 
grammar  school  was  the  first  to  be  established. 
Until  recently  it  has  been  supposed  that  corpo- 
rate provision  for  elementary  education  was  the 
exception,  but  as  the  early  records  are  studied 
more  carefully  it  becomes  evident  that  such  ed- 
ucation was  general.  Sometimes  English  was 
taught  in  grammar  schools;  this  seems  to  have 
been  so  at  first  in  Boston,  an  usher  being  ap- 
pointed for  the  purpose,  after  the  English  fash- 
ion. In  Ipswich  an  English  school  was  coeval 
with  the  grammar  school;  this  was  chiefly  for 
older  children.  In  Charlestown,  Watertown,  and 
Dedham  we  know  that  elementary  instruction 
was  furnished  from  the  beginning,  and  this  was 
true  of  all  the  smaller  towns. 

In  a  contract  with  a  teacher  for  the  Roxbury 
grammar  school,*  the  master  covenants  "  to  use 
his  best  skill  and  endeavor,  both  by  precept  and 
example,  to  instruct  in  all  scholastical,  moral, 
and  theological  discipline  the  children  of  the 
proprietors  of  the  school — all  A-B-C-darians  ex- 
cepted.'^ 

It  seems  to  have  been  generally  understood 

*  Dillaway's  History  of  the  Grammar  School  in  Roxbury, 
p.  30. 


54:     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

that  children  would  be  taught  to  read  before  at* 
tending  the  grammar  schools.  Very  early  there 
appeared  that  other  English  institution  so  fa- 
miliar, so  closely  associated  with  memories  of 
childhood — the  dame  school;  and  before  many 
years  this  was  made  a  part  of  the  public-school 
system. 

It  will  be  interesting  now  to  follow  a  child  in 
one  of  the  larger  towns,  during  the  first  century 
of  colonial  existence,  through  his  pupilage.  At 
four  or  five  years  of  age,  clinging  to  the  fingers 
of  some  older  brother  or  sister,  he  toddles  away 
from  his  own  dooryard  to  the  humble  cottage 
where  the  road  to  learning  was  supposed  to  be- 
gin.    It  was  such  as  Crabbe  described — 

"  Where  a  deaf,  poor,  patient  widow  sits 
And  awes  some  thirty  infants  as  she  knits — 
Infants  of  humble,  busy  wives,  who  pay 
Some  trifling  price  for  freedom  through  the  day. 
At  this  good  matron's  hut  the  children  meet, 
Who  thus  becomes  the  mother  of  the  street : 
Her  room  is  small,  they  can  not  widely  stray, 
Her  threshold  high,  they  can  not  run  away; 
With  band  of  yarn  she  keeps  offenders  in, 
And  to  her  gown  the  sturdiest  rogues  can  pin." 

Suspended  by  a  string  from  the  wall  is  the 
single  object  which  was  in  embryo  all  that  the 
Massachusetts  statutes  now  designate  by  the 
phrase  "text-books  and    supplies/'     It  was  the 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  55 

Hornbook,*  an  English  classic  when  Shake- 
speare wrote.  In  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  the  school- 
master, Holof ernes,  is  proved  to  be  "lettered'^ 
because  he  teaches  boys  the  Hornbook.  This  first 
round  in  learning's  ladder  consisted  of  a  card 
set  in  a  frame,  having  printed  on  it  the  Roman 
alphabet,  capitals  and  small  letters;  below,  the 
vowels,  large  and  small;  then  the  familiar  Ab, 
Eb,  lb,  etc.  Following  these  the  benediction — 
^^The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the 
love  of  God,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  be  with  us  all  evermore.  Amen.'"*  Then 
came  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  sometimes,  at  the 
bottom,  the  Roman  numerals.  The  whole  was 
covered  with  a  thin,  translucent  sheet  of  horn,  to 
preserve  it. 

So  Shenstone  describes  it : 

"  Their  books  of  stature  small  they  take  in  hand, 
Which  with  pellucid  horn  secured  are, 
To  save  from  fingers  wet  the  letters  fair  "  ; 

while  Prior  describes  a  more  pleasing  form  of 
the  same  instrument : 

"  To  master  John  the  English  maid 
A  hornbook  gives  of  gingerbread ; 
And  that  the  child  may  learn  the  better,  ** 

As  he  can  name  he  eats  the  letter." 


♦  See  Halliwell's  Notices  of  Fugitive  Tracts,  in  Percy  Society 
Publications,  vol.  xxix,  p.  30,  frontispiece. 


56     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  good  dame,  as  she  knits  or  sews  or  spins, 
listens  to  each  child  in  turn  as  he  calls  the  letters 
in  their  order.  She  eaiertaixxS  him  with  stories 
from  the  Bible,  and  strives  with  moral  precepts 
to  bring  him  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition 
of  the  Lord. 

The  older  children  have  brought  from  home 
their  primers,  in  the  earliest  days  made  in  Eng- 
land, but  after  1660  for  nearly  two  hundred  years 
printed  widely  in  New  England — the  famous 
New  England  Primer.  The  first  edition  was 
plain,  but  soon  and  always  afterward  illustrated 
with  cuts. 

This  little  book  was  a  perfect  vade  mecum  of 
I  what  the  Roxbury  trustees  called  ''  scholastical, 
/'  theological,  and  moral  discipline."  Beginning 
with  the  alphabet,  large  and  small,  the  vowels 
and  consonants  and  combinations  of  these,  there 
followed  lists  of  words  for  spelling,  first  of  two 
syllables,  then  of  three,  then  of  foiir,  then  of  five, 
ending  with  ^^abomination,"  ^^justification,"  etc 
Then  followed  some  moral  injunctions :  "  Pray  to 
God," ''  Hate  lies" ;  then  some  Bible  questions  and 
answers— "Who  was  the  first  man  ?"  then  selec- 
tions from  the  Proverbs,  arranged  alphabetically 
— ""  A  wise  son,"  etc. ;  then  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  Watts's  Cradle  Hymn ;  then  mis- 
cellaneous hymns — "  Now  I  lay  me,"  etc.     Proper 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  57 

names  of  men  and  women,  for  spelling,  followed. 
Then  Agur^s  prayier,  "  Give  me  neither  pover-ty 
nor  riches."  Latjt,  th^^  Westminster  Shorter 
Catechism,  so  called.  I  remember  that  when  a 
child  I  was  compelled  to  learn  it,  and  I  wondered 
what  a  longer  one  could  be  like. 

The  poetical  selections  varied  in  different  edi- 
tions. There  was  considerable  variety,  too,  in  the 
pictures :  the  frontispiece  in  some  was  a  child  re- 
peating his  evening  prayer  at  his  mother's  knee ; 
in  others,  several  children  standing  before  the 
mother,  while  still  another  represented  a  school 
— a  dame  school.  A  Primer  printed  in  1777  has 
a  portrait  of  John  Hancock,  President  of  the 
American  Congress. 

Each  had  a  series  of  cuts  illustrating  promi- 
nent Bible  scenes,  with  couplets  condensing  the 

narrative,  as — 

"  In  Adam's  fall 
We  sinned  all." 

A  picture  of  John  Rogers  at  the  stake  was 
another  cheerful  feature,  with  the  "nine  small 
children  and  one  at  the  breast,"  and  some  edi- 
tions had  a  long  metrical  posthumous  address  to 
his  children.  The  whole  was  called  An  Easy  and 
Pleasant  Guide  to  the  Art  of  Reading — a  title 
which  has  been  applied  to  many  a  primer  pub- 
lished since. 


58     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-S.-IJHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  Primer  mastered,  by  dint  of  much  persua- 
sion and  at  the  cost  of  many  tears,  the  boys  are 
now  too  large  to  be  longer  restrained  by  bands  of 
yarn  or  to  be  pinned  to  the  good  matron's  apron. 
They  are  seven  or  eight  years  ola,  and  the  Latin 
^Xochool  opens  its  doors  to  them — but  not  to  the 
girls.  Their  education  is  finished  if  they  can 
read  the  Primer  through.  The  boys  bring  to  the 
master's  school  a  Psalter  and  a  Bible ;  they  will 
need  no  other  English  books;  they  will  read 
these  every  day  till  they  go  to  college.  They 
will  cipher,  too,  a  little.  The  master  will  dictate 
a  problem,  and  the  boys  will  work  on  it  till  they 
dig  it  out.  But  this  work  is  only  incidental ;  this 
is  a  grammar  school,  and  Latin  grammar  is  the 
be-all  and  the  end-all. 

Master  Cheever,  of  New  Haven,  has  made  a 
little  book — A  Short  Introduction  to  the  Latin 
Tongue.  It  is  known  as  Cheever's  Accidence, 
and  the  New  England  people — always  favoring 
home  productions,  and  always  furnishing  a  home 
market  for  the  best — printed  eighteen  editions  of 
this  before  the  Revolution. 

We  are  to  fancy  our  Latin  School  boys,  in  the 
earlier  days,  in  the  master's  house,  working  their 
way  through  Cheever's  Accidence,  then  plung- 
ing into  the  dreary  wilderness  of  Lilly's  Gram- 
mar, with  its  twenty-five  kinds  of    nouns,  its 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  59^ 

seven  genders,  its  fifteen  solid  pages  of  rules  for 
gender  and  the  exceptions,  its  twenty-two  solid 
pages  of  declensions  of  nonns,  all  of  which  must 
be  committed  to  memory,  not  at  the  point  of  the 
bciyonet  but  .at'  the  end  of  the  ferule.  Cotton 
Mather  says,  ^^  Persisting  in  the  use  of  Lilly's 
book  will  prolong  the  reign  of  the  ferule.'^ 

For  reading  Latin  the  boys  had  first  The  Col- 
loquies of  Corderius,  whose  name  had  a  sweet 
savor  to  the  New  England  worthies,  for  Corde- 
rius had  been  Calvin's  tutor,  and  a  famous  teach- 
er in  the  schools  of  the  Reformers.  They  read 
^sop,  too.  Then  followed  Eutropius — his  short 
history  of  Rome.  Soon  they  began  the  making 
of  Latin,  using  exercise  books;  then,  in  turn, 
Caesar,  Ovid,  Yirgil,  and  Cicero ;  for  Greek,  the 
grammar  and  the  Testament  and  some  Homer. 
All  this  was  to  fit  them  for  the  university,  as  the 
law  required. 

The  university  fixed  its  requirements  for  ad- 
mission as  follows :  *  ^^  Whoever  shall  be  able  to 
read  TuUy  or  any  other  such  like  classical  author 
at  sight,  and  correctly  and  without  assistance  to  , 
speak  and  write  Latin  both  in  prose  and  verse,  I 
and  to  inflect  exactly  the  paradigms  of  Greek 
nouns  and  verbs,  has  a  right  to  >  expect  to  be  ad- 


*  Quincy's  History  of  Harvard  University,  vol.  i,  p.  515. 


^0     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

initted  into  the  college,  and  no  one  may  claim 
admission  without  these  qualifications/^ 
I  So  much  classical  knowledge  every  town  of  a 
hundred  families  was  to  provide,  and  by  a  law  of 
1683  a  town  of  five  hundred  families  must  have 
two  such  schools  and  two  writing  schools. 

It  was  a  long  and  dreary  road — seven  or 
eight  hours  a  day,  with  scanty  recesses,  few  holi- 
days, and  no  vacations.  Only  benches  without 
backs  for  the  lower  classes.  It  was  a  long, 
steady,  persistent  pull  uphill.  It  meant  dogged 
industry,  persistent  application,  resignation  to 
the  inevitable.  A  child  who  had  begun  with 
learning  in  his  Primer  the  definition  of  "Effec- 
tual Calling,"  and  had  followed  this  by  commit- 
ting Lilly's  Grammar,  had  acquired  no  rose-col- 
ored views  of  life ;  had  learned  to  spell  "  work " 
with  a  capital  W,  and  to  print  it  in  italics.  If 
the  boys,  quickly  succeeding  each  other,  came 
into  these  New  England  homes  "  trailing  clouds 
of  glory,"  surely  "the  shades  of  the  prison- 
house  "  began  early  to  close  about  them,  and  long 
before  they  became  men  they  must  have  per- 
ceived "the  vision  splendid  die  away,  and  fade 
into  the  light  of  common  day." 

One  peculiarity  of  all  these  schools  we  may 
notice  in  passing.  The  boys  were  obliged  to  find 
fuel  in  winter.    So  much  was  required  even  in  the 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  61 

schools  called  free,  and  it  was  declared  by  the 
authorities  that  if  any  parents  neglected  to  send 
wood,  their  children  should  have  no  benefit  of  the 
fire ;  and  if  they  sent  log- wood,  the  boys  must  cut 
it  up. 

The  teachers  of  the  earlier  schools  were  men, 
and  men  of  no  ordinary  capacity  and  experience. 
Some  of  them  had  been  clergymen.  All  were 
scholars,  and  most  of  them  had  been  educated 
at  old  Cambridge.  As  soon  as  the  infant  col- 
lege at  new  Cambridge  began  to  bear  fruit,  to 
the  honor  of  the  pious  Harvard,  its  graduates 
found  places  in  the  schools  as  well  as  in  the 
churches. 

Brother  Philemon  Pormort,  who  was  first 
called  to  the  Boston  school,  seems  to  have  been 
an  active  participant  in  the  theological  discus- 
sions of  the  Ann  Hutchinson  controversy,  and 
followed  her  adherents  to  the  infant  settlements 
in  New  Hampshire.  It  required  intellectual  ca- 
pacity of  no  mean  order  to  handle  one's  self  in 
that  tempest,  and  an  associate  of  Mistress  Hutch- 
inson, with  her  mystic  speculations,  of  Vane, 
with  his  youthful  fervor,  and  John  Cotton,  with 
his  subtle  dialectic,  must  have  been  worthy  to 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  long  line  of  Massa- 
chusetts schoolmasters.  His  successor,  Daniel 
Maude,  had  been  a  nonconforming  preacher  in 


62     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

England,  and  after  a  few  years'  service  in  the 
Boston  school  resumed  his  ministry  at  Dover. 

Pre-eminent  among  all  the  teachers  of  the 
early  schools,  pre-eminent  among  the  New  Eng- 
land teachers  of  all  times,  stands  Ezekiel  Chee- 
ver,*  a  ripe  consummate  flower  of  the  Puritan/ 
epoch.  Born  in  London  while  the  Pilgrims  were 
sojourning  in  Ley  den,  a  blue-coat  boy  at  Christ's 
Hospital,  he  came  to  Boston  in  1637,  and  taught 
for  more  than  thirty  years  in  New  Haven,  Ips- 
wich, and  Charlestown.  Then,  in  1670,  he  took 
the  Boston  Latin  School,  which  he  taught  for 
thirty-eight  years,  until  he  died  at  his  post  at  the 
age  of  ninety-four,  after  continuous  service  in 
the  New  England  schools  of  seventy  years.  He 
was  buried  from  his  schoolhouse;  was  followed 
to  the  grave  by  the  Governor  and  all  the  dig- 
nitaries of  church  and  state;  was  eulogized  in 
a  sermon  and  elegy  by  his  pupil.  Cotton  Mather, 
as  no  schoolmaster  was  ever  eulogized  before  or 
since.f  "  Ink  is  too  vile  a  liquor,^^  said  the  great 
preacher  in  his  elegy;  '^liquid  gold  should  fill  the 
pen  by  which  such  things  are  told.^' 


*  For  biography  of  Cheever,  see  N.  E.  Hist,  and  Gen.  Reg., 
vol.  xxxiii,  p.  164  (April,  1879) ;  vol.  xli,  p.  65  (January,  1887) ; 
Barnard's  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  i,  p.  297. 

t  Boston  Public  Latin  School,  Historical  Sketch  and  Cata- 
logue, Appendix,  p.  275. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  6" 

That  lie  was  a  good  Latin  scholar  his  littk  , 

book    proves — used    for    more    than    a  century 

throughout  the  colonies.     Mather  says : 

"  Were  grammar  quite  extinct,  yet  at  his  brain 
The  candle  might  have  well  been  lit  again." 

There  are  indications  that  he  was  in  sympathy 
with  Ascham  and  Milton  in  their  efforts  to  ad- 
vance education.  He  was  more  patient  with  the 
slow  boys,  less  severe  and  brutal  with  all  boys, 
than  schoolmasters  of  the  age  were  wont  to  be. 
He  never  sunk  the  man  and  the  Christian  in  the 
pedagogue.  Full  to  the  brim  with  Puritan  the- 
ology— he  wrote  a  book  called  The  Scriptural 
Prophecies  Explained — he  labored  diligently  to 
help  his  boys  to  become  Christian  men.  ^^  He 
taught  us  Lilly,  and  he  gospel  taught." 

So,  after  training  up  a  whole  generation  of 
Boston's  sons,  he  was  gathered  to  his  rest,  full  of 
years  and  full  of  honors.  Making  all  allowance 
for  Mather's  ostentatious  grandiloquence*,  we  to- 
day in  this  city,  whose  character  he  did  so  much 
to  mold,  revere  his  memory  as  that  of  a  wise, 
learned,  pious,  faithful  schoolmaster.  As  Aris- 
totle said  of  Plato,  "  he  was  one  whom  all  good 
men  ought  to  imitate  as  well  as  celebrate." 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  all  the  early 
masters  were  like  Cheever,  but  they  were  all 
scholarly  after  the  fashion  of  the  times,  and  all 


MASSACI  ^&  pIjBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

feply  iml?         v^ich  tliat  religious  spirit  wliich_ 
^aractej  the  Puritan  epocli.     Their  whole 

.raining  rided  to  this.  Their_coll^^e.. -studies 
were  the  studies  of  a  divinity  school.*  There  was 
some  mathematics  —  arithmetic  and  geometry  ; 
some  natural  science — physics  and  astronomy. 
All  thejrest_was_along  the  lineLDJ  the  humanities. 
Grammar  and  logic  and  rhetoric;  politics  and 
ethics;  Chaldee,  Hebrew,  and  Syriac;  biblical 
and  catechetical  divinity — all  this  wealth  of 
learning  was  at  the  service  of  the  children. 

There  is  another  feature  of  these  schools 
which  must  be  noticed :  they  were  under  the 
constant  and  vigilant  supervision  of  the  minis- 
ers.  The  minister  was  a  town  officer,  as  the 
'teacher  was.  He  was  employed  for  the  religious 
instruction  of  the  people,  and  the  children  were 
a  most  important  part  of  his  charge.  So  he  vis- 
ited the  school  regularly,  frequently  questioned 
the  children  on  the  sermon  of  the  preceding  Sun- 
day, and  periodically  examined  them  in  the  cate- 
chism and  in  their  knowledge  of  the  Bible. 
Sometimes  the  children  were  required  to  go  to 
him  for  this  purpose. 

The  ministers  regarded  this  relation  not  only 
as  a  duty  but  as  a  right.     When,  in  1710,  the  Bos* 

*  Pierce's  History  of  Harvard  University,  Appendix,  p.  6. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE    .  Ji;^;Cj^piON.  65 

ton  people  chose  five  men  as  tix^j..  '*^^ors  to  visit 
the  Latin  Schcol  with  the  minis,  ,  ;Jthoiigh 
the  ministers  were  to  pray  with  the  ...  olars  and 
'^  entertain  them  with  some  instruction^;  of  piety 
specially  adapted  to  their  age  and  education/' 
Increase  Mather  was  highly  incensed  at  the  inno- 
vation, and  after  declaring  that  the  ministers 
were  the  fittest  persons  in  the  world  to  be  the 
visitors  of  the  schools,  pettishly  declared  that 
he  would  not  go  with  the  lay  inspectors,  but 
would  go  when  he  pleased,  and  would  go  aloiie.     ^ 

So  the  children  were  enveloped,  at  home  and 
at  school,  week  days  and  Sundays,  in  an  atmos- 
phere saturated  with  religion,  or  with  religious 
forms  and  services  and  ideas  and  language. 
When  a  neighbor  or  a  kinsman  dies.  Judge  Sew- 
all  puts  all  the  children — Samuel  and  Betty 
and  Hannah — into  the  carriage  and  drives  away 
to  the  funeral,  two  or  three  hours  long,  that  no 
opportunity  be  lost  to  impress  the  solemn  veri- 
ties of  life  and  death  and  the  grave  and  the  here- 
after. "When,  after  patient  search,  he  finds  that 
the  cause  of  the  stoppage  of  the  water-spout  on 
the  roof  is  the  lodging  in  it  of  a  ball,  he  sends 
for  the  minister  and  has  a  season  of  prayer  with 
his  boys,  that  their  mischief  or  carelessness  may 
be  set  in  its  proper  light,  and  that  the  event  may 
be  sanctified  to  their  spiritual  good. 


63     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Powers  of  darkness  and  of  light  were  strug- 
gling for  the  possession  of  the  soul  of  every 
child ;  there  was  no  time  to  lose.  Every  oppor- 
tunity must  be  improved  by  parents,  ministers, 
and  teachers  to  pluck  the  children  as  brands 
from  the  burning.  Hell  with  its  physical  tor- 
ments, heaven  with  its  no  less  selfish  allure- 
ments, stood  always  in  their  sight  with  open 
doors,  and  the  cries  of  the  lost  were  mingled  in 
their  ears  with  the  song  of  the  redeemed  and  the 
music  of  harpers  harping  with  their  harps. 

If  it  sometimes  happened  that  the  very  at- 
tempt to  make  the  child  religious  defeated  itself 
— that  the  imagination  strained  to  too  high  a 
flight  lost  its  power  to  fill  with  meaning  the  for- 
mulas of  doctrine,  that  familiarity  with  the  sol- 
emn and  awful  deadened  the  sensibilities  to  spir- 
itual influences,  so  that  character  and  conduct 
remained  unchanged  in  spite  of  the  religiosity 
of  the  age,  it  was  only  what  might  have  been  ex- 
..^ected. 

^ ,  I  remember  visiting  a  high  school  and  being 
shocked  by  the  general  irreverence  and  disorder 
during  the  openirgr  exerjc^*  :;S  of  devotion.  To 
my  surprise,  the  i^.  jlass-exercise  which  fol- 
lowed was  one  on  Christian  Evidences. 

When  once  a  committee  was  appointed  to  see 
if  the  instruction  at  11^    ^ard  remained  true  to 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE   REVOLUTION.  67 

its  earliest  motto,  ^'For  Christ  and  the  Church/^ 
they  reported  that  the  Greek  Catechism  was  re- 
cited regularly  by  the  Freshmen,  and  that  Wol- 
lebius^s  System  of  Divinity  was  diligently  pur- 
sued by  the  other  classes,  while  on  Saturday 
evening,  in  the  presence  of  the  president,  the 
students  repeated  the  sermon  of  the  foregoing 
Sabbath.  Yet  the  committee  were  compelled  to 
lament  the  continued  prevalence  of  several  im- 
moralities, particularly  stealing,  lying,  swearing, 
idleness,  picking  of  locks,  and  too  frequent  use  of 
strong  drink.*  From  all  which  we  learn  a  les- 
son for  our  own  times — that  an  education  di- 
rected by  the  clergy,  environed  by  ecclesiastical . 
sanctions,  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  ecclesias- 
tical rites,  and  making  instruction  in  ecclesiastical 
dogma  imperative,  is  not  necessarily  a  religious 
education,  and  holds  no  necessary  relation  to  the 
development  of  Christian  character. 

In  the  smaller  towns,  which  were  not  required 
to  maintain  a  school,  or  at  most  only  the  English 
school,  the  opportunities  for  education  were  less 
favorable.  In  some  of  them  no  town  school  was 
kept  during  the  ^^'irlieT^  vej^rs  of  settlement,  the 
parents  instructing  thfo  <MikiTen  at  home,  or  em- 
ploying some  man  or  woman  who  was  willing  for 

*  Quincy*s  History  of  Z«vrvard  University,  vol.  i,  p.  319. 


68     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

a  few  pence  a  week  to  start  the  children  in  the 
Primer  and  the  Psalter. 

There  is  a  tradition  in  one  town  that  the  chil- 
dren learned  to  write  on  white-birch  bark,  and 
were  tanght  in  rotation  a  week  each  by  all  the 
men  who  could  read.  Often  the  minister  added 
to  his  other  duties  the  work  of  teaching,  espe- 
cially the  teaching  of  Latin,  in  the  towns  which 
had  no  grammar  school. 

This  seems  to  have  been  universally  the  case 
in  the  Plymouth  colony.  The  old  colony,  less 
populous  and  less  wealthy  than  its  younger 
neighbor,  made  no  public  provision  for  schools 
for  fifty  years  after  its  settlement,  though  schools 
of  some  sort  were  early  in  existence.*  In  1663  f 
the  General  Court  proposed  unto  the  several 
towns  of  its  jurisdiction,  as  a  thing  they  ought 
to  take  into  their  serious  consideration,  "that 
some  course  may  be  taken  that  in  every  town 
there  may  be  a  schoolmaster  set  up  to  train  up 
children  to  reading  and  writing.""  But  the  towns 
seem  to  have  taken  little  notice  of  the  suggestion. 

In  1670  X  the  profits  from  the  Cape  Cod  fisher- 
ies were  set  apart  for  a  free  school,  and  a  gram- 

*  Plymouth  Col.   Rec,  vols,  i  and  ii,  p.  37,  February,  11, 
1635.    History  of  Plymouth  County,  Philadelphia,  1885,  p.  1150. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  xi,  p.  211. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  V,  pp.  107,  108,  259,  260 ;  vol.  xi,  pp.  233,  237. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  69 

mar  scliool  was  soon  after  established  at  Plym- 
outh. Seven  years  later,*  thirty  years  after  the 
Massachusetts  law,  the  General  Court  authorized 
towns  of  fifty  families,  which  chose  to  have  a 
grammar  school,  to  support  it  partly  by  rate,  and 
Required  towns  of  seventy  families  which  had  no 
such  school  to  pay  a  fixed  sum  to  the  nearest  town 
which  had  one.  By  the  same  act  the  profits  of 
the  fisheries  were  divided  among  the  towns  sup- 
porting such  schools.  The  threefold  method  of 
support  is  here  fixed  by  law :  fixed  revenues,  tui- 
tion fees,  and  a  town  rate.  From  this  time  on- 
ward the  educational  history  of  the  two  colonies 
is  one. 

As  we  enter  upon  the  eighteenth  century, 
after,  seventy  years  of  colonial  history,  we  feel 
that  the  atmosphere  has  changed.  There  is  less 
enthusiasm  for  learning  than  the  first  settlers 
had.  There  is  a  manifest  decline  in  school  spirit. 
This  is  apparent  in  the  legislation  and  in  the 
records  of  the  county  courts. 

In  the  re-enactment  of  the  colonial  laws,  which 
took  place  soon  after  the  reorganization  of  the 
government  under  the  Province  Charter,f  the 
penalty  upon  the  towns  for  neglecting  to  provide 

*  Plymouth  Col.  Rec,  vol.  xi,  pp.  246,  247. 
t  Acts  and  Resolves  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
i,  p.  63. 


70     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

a  schoolmaster  was  j&xed  at  £10.  .*  In  1701,*  after 
declaring  that  "  the  observance  of  the  school  law 
was  shamefully  neglected  by  divers  towns,  and 
the  penalty  thereof  not  required,  tending  greatly 
to  the  nourishment  of  ignorance  and  irreligion, 
whereof  grievous  complaint  is  made,'^  the  Gen- 
eral Court  increased  the  penalty  to  £20. 

It  would  seem  that  not  infrequently  the 
towns,  to  evade  the  law,  had  appointed  the  min- 
ister to  be  the  schoolmaster.  To  meet  this,  it  was 
enacted  that  no  minister  of  any  town  should  be 
considered  the  schoolmaster  within  the  intent  of 
the  law.f  At  the  same  time,  all  justices  of  the 
peace  and  all  grand  juries  in  the  counties  were 
enjoined  to  special  vigilance  in  the  execution  of 
the  law.  Following  this  enactment,  at  almost 
every  session  of  the  courts  some  town  was  '^  pre- 
sented"" by  the  grand  jury  for  neglecting  to 
maintain  the  schools  required  by  law.  This  is 
especially  true  regarding  the  grammar  school, 
which  came  to  be  considered  an  unnecessary  bur- 
den by  towns  which  had  just  reached  the  num- 
ber of  families  which  made  the  support  compul- 
sory. 

Various  excuses  were  offered  for  the  neglect — 

*  Acts  and  Resolves  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
i,  p.  470. 

+  Ibid.,  i,  p.  470. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  71 

sometimes  poverty,  sometimes  inability  to  secure 
teachers ;  while  organized  efforts  were  not  want- 
ing to  secure  a  repeal  of  the  law.  Some  towns 
persistently  refused  to  support  the  grammar 
school,  preferring  to  pay  the  penalty  as  cheaper. 
To  meet  these  cases  the  penalty  was  heavily  in- 
creased a  few  years  later. 

To  one  familiar  with  the  early  history  of  our 
State  this  decadence  of  the  primitive  ardor  does 
not  seem  strange.  It  would  seem  more  strange 
had  the  high  level  been  maintained,  for  during 
these  seventy  years  the  little  bark  of  state  had 
been  tossed  on  troubled  waters.  The  educational 
history  of  Massachusetts  is  projected  on  a  somber 
background.  Scarcely  had  the  colonists  become 
settled  in  their  new  homes  along  the  bay  before 
dissensions  among  themselves  brought  the  whole 
enterprise  into  hazard — dissensions  so  sharp,  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  so  radical,  as  to  reach  down 
to  the  bed-rock  both  of  their  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical foundations. 

The  agitation  of  these  controversies  had  scarce- 
ly subsided  when  new  clouds  appeared  along  the 
English  horizon.  The  banished  dissenters  car- 
ried back  to  England  exaggerated  stories  of  the 
intolerance  and  independence  of  Massachusetts. 
The  rival  claimants  to  her  territory  pressed  their 
suit,  and  the  colonists  would  have  lost  their  char- 


72     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

ter,  and  with,  it  all  possibility  of  building  the 
structure  they  had  planned,  had  not  Charles  been 
more  concerned  to  save  his  crown  than  to  crush 
the  colony. 

Thus  the  second  decade  went  by.  The  rule  of 
the  Parliament  promised  a  period  of  peace ;  but 
a  new  trouble  arose,  and  the  third  decade  found 
the  people  stirred  over  the  Quaker  invasion. 
Hardly  were  these  sad  days  over  when  the  Res- 
toration brought  new  political  dangers,  and  for 
the  next  thirty  years  the  leaders  in  the  colony 
were  taxing  their  ingenuity  to  the  utmost  to  avert 
the  blow  which  fell  at  last,  when  their  cherished 
charter  was  annulled  and  they  were  left  to  the 
tyranny  of  Andros  and  his  myrmidons. 

During  this  same  period  heavier  calamities 
had  fallen  upon  them  in  the  terrible  struggle 
known  as  King  Philip's  War.  Four  years  of  anx- 
ious solicitude  were  followed  by  fourteen  months 
of  continuous  and  unmitigated  horror.  As  the 
messengers  came  in  quick  succession  to  the  pa- 
triarch Job,  each  telling  of  a  new  calamity,  until 
he  was  stripped  and  desolate,  so  from  north,  east, 
south,  and  west,  every  day,  sometimes  almost 
every  hour,  brought  news  of  villages  burned  anc 
their  inhabitants  massacred,  or  of  the  troops  sent 
to  their  rescue  ambushed  and  butchered.  From 
one  end  of  the  colony  to  the  other  the  people  in 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  73 

their  dreams  heard  the  war-whoop  of  savages 
and  the  crackling  of  flames,  and  saw  the  toma- 
hawk and  the  scalping-knife  doing  their  bloody 
work.  Happy  were  they  if  they  were  not  wak- 
ened to  the  reality. 

When  all  was  over,  more  than  half  a  million 
dollars  had  been  spent,  thirteen  towns  had  been 
destroyed,  six  hundred  buildings  burned,  and  six 
hundred  men,  the  flower  of  the  colony,  had  been 
killed.  Some  towns  were  so  impoverished  that 
their  share  of  the  colony  tax  was  remitted,  and 
for  three  years  the  smaller  towns  were  relieved 
from  the  obligation  to  support  the  grammar 
schools. 

Only  six  years  later,  and  the  gloom  of  the 
witchcraft  delusion  settled  like  a  pall  over  the 
province,  and  swift  upon  the  heels  of  this  calam- 
ity came  the  war  with  the  French,  with  Sir  Wil- 
liam Phipp's  disastrous  expedition  against  Que- 
bec, and  the  new  Indian  atrocities  upon  the  fron- 
tier settlements  on  the  north  and  east. 

Such  is  the  record  of  these  first  seventy  years, 
and  in  them  all  not  one  without  some  danger  or 
some  menace  of  danger.  When  a  French  states- 
man was  asked  what  he  did  during  the  Revolu- 
tion, he  replied,  "I  lived.''^  It  was  much  that 
the  schools  of  Massachusetts  lived  through  the 
trying  vicissitudes  of  this  first  period. 


74     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

"With  the  close  of  Queen  Anne's  War  the  prov- 
ince entered  upon  a  new  epoch,  which  brought 
with  it  changes  in  the  school  system  whose  influ- 
ence we  have  not  yet  outlived.  In  the  early  days 
the  fear  of  Indian  invasion  had  served  to  hold 
the  settlers  somewhat  closely  together;  indeed, 
in  a  part  of  the  towns,  as  in  Dedham,  the  people 
were  forbidden  to  build  beyond  a  fixed  distance 
of  one  or  two  miles  from  the  meeting-house. 
But  now  that  this  danger  seemed  to  be  over,  the 
people  began  to  push  out  into  the  wilderness. 

Outlying  portions  of  the  older  towns  were  oc- 
cupied, and  new  settlements  made  so  rapidly  that 
between  1700  and  1760  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  towns  were  incorporated,  and  during  the 
next  ten  years  forty-five  more,  chiefly  west  of  the 
Connecticut. 

Many  of  these  new  towns  had  no  nucleus  of 
population,  no  village  center,  the  farming  settlers 
scattering  themselves  widely.  In  others  there 
were  several  nuclei,  larger  or  smaller,  the  people 
grouping  themselves  in  isolated  hamlets,  where  a 
fertile  spot  in  the  midst  of  rocks  and  swamps,  a 
mill  privilege  or  a  fish  weir,  tempted  them  to  set- 
tle. Sometimes  family  ties  led  a  father  and  son, 
or  brothers,  to  locate  near  each  other.  Some- 
times mere  social  instinct — the  desire  for  neigh- 
bors— brought  several  families  into  propinquity. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE   THE  REVOLUTION,  75 

In  all  these  towns,  new  and  old,  the  school 
problem  presented  itself  under  new  conditions  in 
thfs\sec6nd  century,  and  the  people  solved  it  in 
their  usual  hand-to-mouth  way,  with  no  calculat- 
ing of  consequences.  All  the  children  were  to 
be  taught  to  read,  and  every  town  was  to  have 
a  school.  It  is  probable  that  there  was  less  ca- 
pacity for  home  instruction  than  there  had  been 
a  hundred  years  before.  Of  the  women  whose 
names  appear  in  the  recorded  deeds  of  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  either  as  grantors 
of  property  or  as  relinquishing  dower,  something 
less  than  forty  per  cent  sign  their  names  ;  all  the 
others  make  their  mark.* 

So  we  begin  to  read  in  the  records  of  ^^.  moving 
schools.^''  The  children  went  no  longer  to  the 
schools;  the  school  went  to  the  children.  At 
first  the  towns  voted  that  the  school  which  had 
been  kept  through  the  year  in  one  place,  be  kept 
for  a  part  of  the  year  in  each  of  several  places. 
Sometimes  the  period  was  equal  in  each  place, 
sometimes  very  unequal.  Thus,  in  Scituate  (1704), 
the  school  was  to  be  kept  one  third  at  each  end  and 
one  third  in  the  middle ;  so  in  Amesbury  (1711), 
four  months   in  each  of  three  places;  in  Yar- 

*  This  proportion  has  been  determined  from  a  careful 
examination  of  the  registry  books  in  the  counties  of  Suffolk, 
Essex,  and  Middlesex. 

7 


76     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

mouth  the  school  time  for  five  places  varied  from 
four  Weeks  to  four  months.  In  some  of  ;^.he 
towns  schooling  was  still  more  scanty,  as  in  Sut- 
ton (1730),  where  a  school  "to  learn  the  children 
to  read  and  write  English ''  was  ordered  te  be 
kept  at  the  discretion  of  the  selectmen  iix  four 
places,  one  month  in  each.  y 

Noi  only  was  the  English  school  thus  put^n 
wheels,  but  in  many  places  the  grammar'  school 
as  well.  In  Gloucester  (1751),  the  grammar-school 
instruction  for  three  years  was  divided  among 
seven  localities  in  the  proportion  of  nine,  four 
and  a  half,  three,  one  and  a  half,  seven,  five  and 
a  half,  and  five  and  a  half  months.  One  month 
and  a  half  of  the  grammar  school  in  three  years 
— what  a  boon !  But  these  far-away  people  paid 
their  taxes  and  demanded  their  share  of  the  bene- 
fits, though  that  share  be  ever  so  small.  They 
would  have  justice,  though  the  heavens  fall. 

The  child  who  began  his  Latin  grammar  and 
spent  his  six  weeks  on  it  would  have  run  some 
risk  of  forgetting  his  part  before  the  three  years 
came  round ; .  but  we  know  that  in  some  towns 
provision  was  made  by  which  those  who  cared  to 
do  so  might  follow  the  school  on  its  travels,  and, 
like  the  English  drum-beat  in  Webster^s  meta- 
phor, "  keep  company  with  the  hours  throughout 
the  year." 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  77 

In  the  earlier  apportionment  of  the  schooFs 
time  the  terms  "angles"'  and  "squadrons'"  are 
used  for  the  divisions  of  the  town.  The  expres- 
sion "  to  squadron  out  the  schools ''  is  not  an  un- 
common one.*  Afterward  these  names  were  su- 
perseded by  the  word  districts. 

When  this  division  of  the  school  time  was 
made,  and  in  many  towns  for  a  long  period,  there 
were  no  schoolhouses  in  the  squadrons;  but 
after  a  time  it  was  made  a  condition  of  having  a 
school  at  all,  that  the  squadron  should  build  a 
schoolhouse.f  This  tended  to  fix  the  limits  of 
the  districts. 

Another  step  was  taken  by  which  the  disin- 
tegrating process  was  hastened  and  confirmed. 
The  moving  school  was  the  town  school,  sent  on 
its  travels  by  a  vote  of  the  town,  and  with  the 
limits  of  its  stay  in  each  locality  fixed  by  the 
same  vote.  Usually  the  same  teacher  taught 
throughx)u^_the___year===-^ 

philosopher."'  But  about  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury, or  a  little  earlier,  some  of  the  towns  were 
divided  into  districts,^  and  each  district  was  al- 


*  In  Sutton  (1735),  a  committee  was  chosen  "  to  squadron  out 
the  schoolhouses." 

f  So  in  Gloucester  in  1751. 

X  Haverhill,  1712 ;  Worcester,  1731 ;  Gloucester,  1735 ;  Brim- 
field,  1736;  Boxford,  1739;  Abington,  1755;  and  Grafton,  1785. 


78     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

lowed  to  draw  its  share  of  the  school  money  and 
spend  it  as  it  liked.  Thus  the  selection  of  the 
teacher,  his  pay,  and  the  time  when  the  school 
shall  be  kept,  are  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
selectmen  and  the  school  ceases  to  be  a  town 
school. 

N"ot  only  is  the  amount  of  schooling  diminish- 
ing, but  the  quality  is  evidently  deteriorating. 
The  moving  school  does  not  attract  the  best  men. 
Special  inducements  are  offered.  Professed 
schoolmasters — notice  the  word — are  by  law  ex- 
empted from  taxes  (1692) ;  next,  from  militia  duty 
(1693) ;  then,  from  watch  (1699).  On  the  other 
hand,  fences  are  found  necessary  to  keep  out  the 
unworthy.  The  grammar  master  must  be  ap- 
proved by  the  minister  of  the  town  and  of  the 
two  next  adjacent  towns,  or  two  of  them.*  He 
must  be  not  only  good,  but  conspicuously  good. 
Here  is  the  first  compulsory  certification  of 
teachers  known  in  our  history. 

Another  section  of  the  same  law  marks  a  de- 
cided change  in^the  conditions,  and  also  declares 
a  principle  of  the  highest  importance.  The  act 
declares  that  keepers  of  schools  must  be  of  sober 
and  good  conversation,  and  must  have  the  allow- 
ance and  approbation  of  the  selectmen,  under  a 

*  Acts  and  Resolves  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
i,  p.  470. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  Y9 

penalty  of  forty  shillings.  The  phrase  "  persons 
who  keep  schools  "  is  significant.  Before  this  we 
have  read  in  the  laws  only  of  schoolmasters,  but 
the  tendency  to  lift  the  burden  of  school  support 
from  the  parents  to  the  public  had  been  working, 
and  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  we  begin  to 
find  such  entries  in  the  town  records  as  '^Paid 
Widow  Walker  ten  shillings  for  schooling  small 
children  ^^ ;  *  '^  Paid  for  boarding  school-dame,  at 
three  shillings  per  week  '^ ;  f  "  Paid  for  a  horse 
to  carry  the  school-dame  up  and  bring  her  down 
again.'^  f  That  is,  the  towns  had  absorbed  into 
their  public  system  that  primitive  institution, 
the  dame  school. J  This  is  not  universal.  In 
some  of  the  larger  towns  no  public  provision  for 
the  youngest  children  was  made  for  another  hun- 
dred years. 

The  employment  of  women  was  made  more 
general  by  the  scattering  of  the  population.  If 
it  was  difficult  to  find  men  willing  to  itinerate 
with  the  grammar  schools,  although  they  might 
be  employed  the  year  through,  it  was  impossible 
to  find  men  willing  to  teach  the  little  neighbor- 
hood schools  for  a  few  weeks  or  months  at  a  time. 
For  these  the  schbol-dames  were  indispensable. 

*  Woburn,  1694.  f  Winchendon,  1768. 

t  Weymouth,  1700;  Amesbury,  1707;  Bradford,  1710; 
Worcester,  1731 ;  Wenham,  1746. 


80     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Mendon  (1732)  voted  to  choose  school-dames 
to  teach  school  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town. 
Westford  (1764)  voted  to  hire  a  school-dame  the 
following  six  months,  to  keep  the  school  in  six 
parts  of  the  town.  Far  out  on  the  frontier,  in 
Northfield  (1721),  where  now  those  magnificent 
institutions  honor  the  wisdom  and  the  liberality 
of  Dwight  L.  Moody,  the  first  teacher  was  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Field,  the  wife  of  the  smith.  She  had 
a  class  of  young  children  twenty-two  weeks  in 
the  warm  season,  at  fourpence  a  week.  While 
teaching,  she  made  shirts  for  the  Indians  at  eight- 
pence  each,  breeches  for  her  husband  s  brother  at 
a  shilling  and  sixpence  per  pair,  and  cared  for 
her  four  young  children. 

Now  that  primary  education  is  becoming  a 
public  matter,  it  attracts  the  attention  of  the 
Legislature,  and  the  state  recognizes  its  duty  and 
declares  its  rights.  It  aflBrms  its  purpose  to  pro- 
tect the  stream  at  its  source.  Not  only  must  the 
masters  be  ^►pproved,  but  all  keepers  of  schools — 
not  onJi^K^epers  of  schools  supported  by  the 
loney,  but  keepers  of  private  schools  as 
w^lT  So  we  find  frequent  entries  in  the  records 
certain  women  are  allowed  and  approved  by 

)  selectmen  to  keep  schools  for  young  children.* 

*  Billerica,  1718.    The  selectmen  g&ve  leave  to  John  Hart- 
welFs  wife  *'tx)  keep  a  school  tx)  instruct  children  to  read  "  (Hazen). 


SCHOOLS  BEPORB  THE  REVOLUTION.         81 

This  early  declaration  seems  to  have  been 
strangely  overlooked  in  recent  discussions.  If, 
for  the  protection  of  the  children  and  the  good 
of  the  State^the  teachers  in  the  public  schools 
must  be  known  to  be  persons  of  good  moral  char* 
acter  and  competent  to  instruct,  why  not  the 
teachers  of  the  private  schools  for  the  same  rea- 
son? If  public  ix>licy  requires  that  the  State 
must  know  what  kind  of  persons  peddle  tinware 
and  keep  junkshops  and  exhibit  wild  animals  in 
a  tent,  why  should  it  allow  anybody  to  open  a 
school  who  can  entice  parents  to  send  their  chil- 
dren to  it,  and  make  no  provision  by  which  the 
public  can  even  know  that  such  a  school  exists  ? 
It  has  been  argued  that  State  inspection  of  pri- 
vate schools  would  lead  to  a  demand  for  State 
support;  but  State  approbation  and  oversight  of 
{Nrivate  schools  no  more  implies  State  support 
than  licensing  a  circus  justifies  a  claim  for  a 
subsidy, 

AU  these  processes  which  we  have  been  ob- 
serving went  on  with,  varying  steps,  under  vary- 
ing conditions,  as  the  towns  multiplied:  new 
towns  imitating  the  old^  settled  masters  in  the 
larger  communities,  itinerant  ones  in  the  more 
sparsely  settled;  school-dames,  sometimes  at  pub- 
lic expense,  sometimes  at  private ;  short  schools 
in  the  outskirts,  longer  ones  in   the  villages; 


82     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

until  the  gathering  storm  of  the  Revolution- 
ary period  absorbed  all  attention.  The  public 
thought  was  held  to  political  questions  until 
the  long  struggle  was  over,  independence  se- 
cured, the  province  changed  to  a  commonwealth, 
the  Union  established  under  a  Constitution,  and 
the  national  era  begun.- 

In  the  State  Constitution  itself  the  f ramers 
recognized  the  existing  system  in  all  its  parts, 
and  reannounced  the  principles  declared  by  the 
fathers :  * 

"Wisdom  and  knowledge  as  well  as  virtue 
diffused  generally  among  the  body  of  the  people, 
being  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  their 
rights  and  liberties ;  and  as  these  depend  on 
spreading  the  opportunities  and  advantages  of 
education  in  the  various  parts  of  the  country, 
and  among  the  different  orders  of  the  people,  it 
shall  be  the  duty  of  Legislatures  and  magistrates, 
in  all  future  periods  of  this  Commonwealth,  to 
cherish  the  interest  of  literature  and  the  sciences, 
and  all  seminaries  of  them,  especially  the  Uni-  ' 
versity  of  Cambridge,  public  schools  and  gram- 
mar schools  in  the  towns.^^ 

— ^  No  sooner  had  the  pressure  of  war  been  re- 
moved and  the  agitations  of  Constitution-making 

*  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  chap,  v,  section  2. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE   THE  REVOLUTION.  83 

subsided,  than  the  old  subject  of  poj),ular  edu- 
cation came  again  to  the  front^  and*  in  1789  *  a 
most  elaborate  sahool  law  was  framed,  crystalliz- 
ing into  statutes  all  the  principles  and  practices 
which  had  been  slowly  evolving  during  the  past 
hundred  and  fifty  years. 

The  new  law  followed  the  old  in  graduating 
its  requirements  to  the  population  of  the  towns. 
Towns  having  fifty  families  must  furnish  each 
year  six  months^  schooling  by  a  master;  this 
might  be  in  one  school  or  many ;  for  the  larger 
towns  a  longer  aggregate  time  was  prescribed. 
These  were  English  schools.  Besides  these, 
towns  of  two  hundred  families  must  support  a 
grammar  schoolmaster.  The  older  school  law 
had  required  instruction  only  in  reading  and 
writing;  the  new  law  prescribed  reading,  writ- 
ing, the  English  language,  orthography,  arith- 
metic, and  decent  behavior.  Except  by  special 
direction  of  the  selectmen,  no  youth  might  be 
sent  to  the  grammar  school  unless  they  had 
learned  elsewhere  to  read. 

The  masters  of  all  these  schools  must  be  grad- 
uates of  some  college  or  university,  or  they  must 
produce  a  certificate  of  qualification  from  a 
learned  minister  of  the  town  or  neighborhood; 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  1789,  June  25th. 


84     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

and,  \)^^^m,  they  must  produce  a  certificate  of 
moral  cnaraT^^i^from  a  minister  or  from  a  select- 
man of  their  own  town. 

The  angust  General  Court  condescends  to  con- 
sider children  in  the  most  early  stages  of  life, 
and  ordains  that  the  masters  or  mistresses  of 
schools  for  this  primary  education  must  also  be 
approved  as  persons  of  sober  life  and  conversa- 
tion and  qualified  to  teach.  Towns  are  author- 
ized to  divide  their  territory  and  fix  the  limits  of 
school  districts. 

For  the  first  time  provision  is  made  by  law 
for  regular  official  supervision  of  the  schools, 
either  by  the  ministers  and  selectmen,  or  by  com- 
mittees specially  chosen  for  the  purpose.  All 
the  schools  must  be  visited  as  often  as  once  in 
six  months,  and  ^^  the  diligence  and  proficiency  of 
the  scholars  "  determined.  Neither  the  teachers 
nor  the  pupils  could  complain  of  the  curious  pro- 
viso that  reasonable  notice  should  be  given  of 
the  time  of  the  visitation. 

Comparing  the  new  law  with  the  old,  we  see 
that  the  standard  is  that  of  a  degenerate  age. 
Whereas  in  the  early  colonial  days  there  was  a 
permanent  English  school  in  every  town  of  fifty 
families,  now  only  six  months^  schooling  is  de- 
manded, and  this  may  be  subdivided  indefinitely. 
Whereas  each  town  of  a  hundred  families  must 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE   THE  REVOLUTION.  85 

have  supported  a  permanent  grammar  school, 
where  boys  could  be  fitted  for  ^the  university, 
now  all  such  towns  below  two  hundred  families 
need  keep  only  the  English  school,  and  might 
fritter  away  the  twelve  months  in  driblets. 

Had  the  old  law  remained  in  force,  every 
town  in  Bristol,  Dukes,  Nantucket,  and  Suffolk 
Counties,  nine  of  eleven  in  Barnstable,  twenty  of 
twenty-five  in  Berkshire,  twenty  of  twenty-two 
in  Essex,  seventeen-  of  twenty-three  in  Franklin^" 
thirteen  of  sixteen  in  Hampden,  eighteen  of 
twenty-one  in  Hampshire,  thirty-five  of  forty- 
one  in  Middlesex,  seventeen  of  nineteen  in  Nor- 
folk, sixteen  of  seventeen  in  Plymouth,  forty- 
four  of  forty-nine  in  Worcester — two  hundred 
and  thirty  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  in  all — ■ 
must  have  supported  the  grammar  schools.  By 
the  change  of  a  single  word,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  of  these  towns  were  exempted  from  obli- 
gations which  some  of  them  had  borne  for  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years.  The  free  and  open  path  to 
the  university  was  closed  to  the  boys  of  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  towns,  and  for  some  of  them  it 
has  only  recently  been  opened. 

Another  significant  fact  about  this  law,  as 
indeed  of  the  earlier  laws,  is  that  all  which  seems 
new  is  only  an  embodiment  of  sentiments  and 
practices  which  had    already  become    popular. 


86     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

All  the  principal  towns  had  established  schools 
before  the  law  of  1647  made  them  compulsory. 
Towns  had  been  forming  districts  for  fifty  or 
sixty  years.  They  had  been  employing  women 
to  teach  for  a  longer  time.  They  had  been  pro- 
viding free  primary  schools,  and  they  had  been 
choosing  committees  for  school  purposes — regu- 
larly or  periodically — through  all  their  history, 
and  they  had  been  teaching  all  the  branches  now 
required.  The  new  law  only  legalized  existing 
practices.  The  school  system  had  been  devel- 
oped by  the  people  freely,  and  not  under  the 
stress  of  legal  enactments.  Here  is  the  essence 
of  government  by  the  people,  and  no  better  illus- 
tration of  it  can  be  found  in  all  our  history. 

However  the  dominant  Calvinistic  theology 
of  Puritan  Massachusetts  may  have  theorized 
concerning  ^'  fixed  fate ""  and  ^'  foreknowledge  ab- 
solute,'^ practically  it  recognized  in  every  village 
community  a  free  moral  agent,  acting  out  its 
own  volitions  and  drawing  upon  itself  the  conse- 
quences of  its  own  freedom.  Out  of  this  grew  the 
individuality  so  characteristic  of  Massachusetts 
towns :  some  open  to  new  influences,  looking  al- 
ways toward  the  east,  ready  to  welcome  the  ris- 
ing sun,  generous  in  sentiment  and  in  provision, 
always  in  the  van  of  social  progress  ;  others  nar- 
row, petty,  parsimonious,  burning  incense  to  the 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  87 

past  rather  than  offering/Sacrifices  to  the  future ; 
not  because  they  reverence  the  past  so  much, 
but  because  incense  is  cheaper  than  oxen  and 
sheep,  or  libations  of  wine  and  oil. 

It  is  in  this  latter  class  of  towns  that  popular 
government  is  not  an  unmixed  blessing.  Here 
public  opinion  is  proved  to  be  not  always  the  best 
judge  of  public  interest,  and  public  sentiment 
not  always  to  tend  to  conserve  or  promote  the 
public  good.  Where  ignorance  and  selfishness 
dominate,  institutions  suffer,  and  thousands  of 
children  in  Massachusetts  have  been  defrauded 
of  the  best  part  of  their  inheritance  from  the 
fathers,  by  the  narrow  selfishness  of  the  com- 
munities into  which  it  was  their  misfortune  to 
be  born.  Evidence  of  this  will  accumulate  as  we 
proceed  in  our  survey. 

While  most  of  the  provisions  of  the  law  of 
1789  were  but  sanctions  of  existing  practices,  and 
have  been  modified  by  subsequent  legislation,  the 
law  contained  one  section  wholly  new  in  its  let- 
ter, but  focusing  in  itself  all  the  traditions  of 
the  Reformation  period,  and  gleaming  still  out  of 
the  dullness  of  the  public  statutes. 
Moral  Instruction. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  president,  professors,  and  tutors 
of  the  University  at  Cambri^^e  and  of  the  several  colleges,  of 
all  preceptors  and  teachers  of  academies,  and  of  all  other  in- 
structors of  youth,  to  exert  their  best  endeavors  to  impress  on 


88     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  minds  of  children  and  youth  committed  to  their  care  and 
instruction  the  principles  of  piety  and  justice  and  a  sacred  re- 
gard to  truth ;  love  of  their  country,  humanity,  and  universal 
benevolence;  sobriety,  industry,  and  frugality;  chastity,  mod- 
eration, and  temperance ;  and  those  other  virtues  which  are  the 
ornament  of  human  society  and  the  basis  upon  which  a  repub- 
lican Constitution  is  founded ;  and  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such 
instructors  to  endeavor  to  lead  their  pupils,  as  their  ages  and 
capacities  will  admit,  into  a  clear  understanding  of  the  tendency 
of  the  above-mentioned  virtues  to  preserve  and  perfect  a  repub- 
lican Constitution  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  as  well  as 
to  promote  their  future  happiness,  and  also  to  point  out  to 
them  the  evil  tendency  of  the  opposite  vices. 

These  men,  who  had  just  fought  through  to  a 
triumphant  issue  the  battle  for  civil  liberty  and 
the  right  of  self -government,  who  had  enthroned 
the  people,  were  not  intoxicated  by  their  success. 
They  knew  that  a  corrupt  and  wicked  king 
might  hold  his  power  indefinitely,  but  not  so  a 
corrupt  and  wicked  people  ;  so  they  would  build 
about  their  infant  republic  bulwarks  of  personal 
integrity  and  virtue,  that  thus  the  public  weal 
might  be  conserved. 

Entering  upon  the  new  era  of  national  and 
State  history,  they  set  as  a  corner  stone  of  their 
educational  system  the  declaration  that  what 
men  are,  more  than  what  they  know  or  what 
they  have,  determines  the  perpetuity  of  nations. 
Here  is  the  reply  to  all  charges  against  the  pub- 
lic schools  that  their  influence  does  not  make  for 
righteousness. 


SCHOOLS  BEFORE  THE  REVOLUTION.  89 

There  rests  upon  every  instructor  of  youth,  an 
obligation  as  solemn  as  can  be  placed  by  human 
authority  upon  any  person  to  use  his  opportunity 
to  make  virtuous  men  and  women.  Whatever 
else  he  may  do  or  leave  undone,  he  can  not  shift 
or  evade  this  responsibility. 

In  place  of  the  catechisms  and  creeds  of  the 
earlier  days,  Massachusetts  has  put  the  example 
and  precepts  of  the  instructors  of  her  youth  as 
her  chosen  means  of  securing  the  blessings  of 
liberty  to  succeeding  generations. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE   DISTEICT   SCHOOL   AND   THE   ACADEMY. 

The  half  century  from  1790  to  1840  is  the  pic- 
turesque period  of  Massachusetts  educational  his- 
tory. In  the  prelude  to  Dr.  Holmes's  ophidian 
story,  Elsie  Yenner,  you  remember,  there  is  a 
description  of  a  ^'  deestrick  skule  ^'  in  Pigwacket 
Center,  from  the  mastery  of  which  the  handsome 
young  medical  student  moved  onward  and  up- 
ward to  more  congenial  work  in  the  ApoUinean 
Female  Institute  in  a  distant  town. 

The  institutions  of  which  these  are  types — the 
district  school  and  the  academy — are  the  two  foci 
about  which  move  in  orbits  of  greater  or  less  ec- 
centricity all  the  educational  events  of  the  time. 
Exerting  a  profound  influence  upon  the  genera- 
tion which  was  trained  in  them,  they  have  af- 
fected scarcely  less  strongly  the  imagination  of 
the  generation  which  has. followed  them.  The 
traditions  which  gathered  about  them  and  the 
embellishments  of  literary  art  to  which  they 
readily  lent  themselves  have  idealized  them  into 

90 


DISTRICT  SCEOOL  AND   THE   ACADEMY^      91 

the  source  of  most  that  is  great  and  good  in  New 
England  character. 

We  have  already  marked  the  early  stages  of 

*  evolution  both  of  the  school  district  and  of  the 
district  school.  We  heard  the  scattered  families 
and  the  isolated  hamlets  calling  for  school  privi- 
leges, and  we  saw  the  master  sent  upon  his  rounds 
to  keep  the  "  moving  school."  We  saw  that  later, 
in  many  towns,  lines  were  drawn  squadroning 
out  the  territory ;  and  to  the  people  within  these 
lines  their  share  of  the  school  money  was  given 
to  use  as  they  saw  fit.  But  for  a  century  all  this 
was  informal — de  facto,  but  not  de  jure, 

^  We  saw  that  in  1789  this  division  of  districts 
was  sanctioned  by  law./  A  law  which  sanctions 
also  invites,  and  rapidly,  after  this,  district  divi- 
sions were  fixed.  But  the  new  law  gave  no  pow- 
ers to  the  district.  If  a  schoolhouse  was  needed, 
it  must  be  built  by  the  voluntary  contributions 
of  the  people.  This  state  of  things  could  not 
long  continue,  and  in  1800  *  the  chief  element  of 
sovereignty — the  power  to  tax — was  conferred, 
upon  the  people  of  the  school  districts.  They 
were  authorized  to  hold  meetings,  to  choose  a 
cjlerk,  to  decide  upon  a  site  for  a  schoolhouse,  and 
to  raise   money  by  taxation    for    buying   land 


*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  February  28,  1800. 
8 


92  ■  MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

and  for  building,  repairing,  and  furnishing  the 
house. 

The  next  step  followed  naturally,  perhaps  ne- 
cessarily. In  1817*  the  school  districts '  were 
made  corporations,  with  power  to  sue  and  be 
sued,  to  enforce  contracts,  etc.  Ten  years  l-ater  f 
the  structure  was  completed  by  the  law,  which 
required  the  towns  having  districts  to  choose  for 
each  district  a  prudential  committeeman,  *who 
should  have  the  care  of  the  school  property  in 
the  school  district,  and  the  selection  and  employ- 
ment of  teachers.  Instead  of  choosing  these*men 
in  town  meetings,  the  towns  might  allow  them  to 
be  chosen  in  the  districts,  and  tliis  was  usually"^ 
done^^ 

ly^he  school  district  now,  from  being  a  mere 
social  convenience,  has  become  a  political  insti- 
tution— imperium  in  imperio.  The  year  1827, 
therefore,  is  a  memorable  one.  It  marks  the  cul- 
mination of  a  process  which  had  been  going  on 
steadily  for  more  than  a  ceijtury.  It  marks  the 
utmost  limit  to  the  subdivision  of  American^sov- 
ereignty — the  high- water  mark  of  modern  dremfe^- 
racy,  and  the  low- water  mark  of  the  Massachil- 
setts  school  system. 


*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  June  13,  1817. 
t  Ibid.,  March  10,  1827. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.       93 

Two  limitations  upon  the  power  of  the  dis- 
tricts should  be  noticed.  The  whole  amount  of 
money  to  be  spent  in  supporting  the  schools  of 
the  town  was  still  to  be  determined  by  the  town, 
and  to  be  raised  by  tax  under  town  authority^ 
After  being  raised  and  apportioned  to  the  dis- 
tricts there  was  no  responsibility  to  the  town  for 
its  expenditure.  There  was  a  limitation  upon 
the  districts  in  the  employment  of  teachers.  No 
person  could  be  so  employed  without  a  certificate 
of  qualification  from  the  town  school  committea 
But  this  limitation  was  nominal  rather  than  reaL 
Thus  the  school  district  became  a  creation '  of 
law,  and  the  school  more  and  more  a  creature 
of  circumstances.  It  should  be  remarked  that 
the  division  into  districts  was  not  compulsory ; 
a  few  towns  were  never  so  divided. 

Each  school  district  now  became  a  center  of 
semi-political  activity.  Here  was  exhibited  in 
all  its  force  what  Guizot  so  aptly  terms  "  the  en- 
orgy  of  local  liberty.^'  The  violence  of  ebullition 
is  inversely  as  the  size  of  the  pot.  Questions  in- 
volving the  fate  of  nations  have  been  decided 
with  less  expenditure  of  time,  less  stirring  of  pas- 
sions, less  vociferation  of  declamation  and  denun- 
ciation, than  the  location  of  a  fifteen-by-twenty 
district  schoolhouse.  I  have  known  such  a  ques- 
tion to  call  for  ten  district  meetings,  scattered 


94     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

over  two  years,  bringing  down  from  mountain 
farms  three  miles  away  men  who  had  no  children 
to  be  schooled,  and  who  had  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  vote  in  a  presidential  election  during  the 
period. 

Again,  when  a  teacher  has  given  dissatisfac- 
tion to  a  part  of  the  district,  possibly  to  a  sin- 
gle family,  a  contest  has  arisen  over  the  choice 
of  a  prudential  committeeman.  Into  the  discus- 
sion have  been  brought  questions  the  most  re- 
mote: old  family  feuds  have  been  revived,  and 
new  ones  created;  all  the  petty  jealousies  and 
rivalries,  masculine  and  feminine,  have  been 
brought  to  the  surface,  until  the  whole  dis- 
trict is  by  the  ears.  The  poor  little  teacher, 
who  was  the  innocent  cause  of  all  the  disturb- 
ance, has  been  forgotten,  and  a  social  war  rages 
with  the  bitterness  of  a  Kentucky  vendetta 
and  the  protraction  of  an  English  suit  in  chan- 
cery. 

In  the  choice  of  a  site  for  the  shrine  to  Mi- 
nerva, upon  one  point  there  was  unanimity :  the 
land  must  be  valueless,  or  as  nearly  so  as  possi- 
ble, for  frugality  was  ever  a  New  England  virtue. 
A.  barren  ledge  by  the  roadside,  a  gravelly  knoll, 
the  steeply  sloping  side  of  a  bosky  ravine,  the 
apex  of  the  angle  of  intersecting  roads — such  as 
these  were  choice  spots,  provided  one  could  be 


DISTRICT   SCHOOL   AND  THE   ACADEMY.       95 

found  near  enough  to  the  geographical  center  of 
the  district. 

Absolute  equality  of  privilege  was  the  stand- 
ard aimed  at.  This  was  the  right  for  which  the 
embattled  hosts  were  marshaled  in  the  district 
meetings.  The  district  was  surveyed  and  meas- 
ured; often  the  exact  distance  of  every  liouse 
from  the  proposed  location  was  determined^  that 
as  nearly  as  possible  perfect  equipose  should  be 
secured — each  two-mile  family  on  one  side  hav- 
ing a  two-mile  family  on  the  opposite  side  to  bal- 
ance it. 

If  this  ideal  condition  was  not  reached — if,  as 
sometimes  happened,  the  rights  of  individuals 
were  overborne  for  the  convenience  of  the  major- 
ity— a  rankling  sense  of  injustice  remained ; 
smoldering  embers  ready  to  kindle  into  flame ; 
an  old  score  waiting  to  be  paid  off,  may  be  in 
the  town  meeting,  perhaps  in  the  election  to  the 
General  Court,  possibly  in  a  church  quarrel. 
Within  a  half-dozen  years  I  have  discovered 
more  than  one  such  "ancient  grudge''  not  yet 
fed  fat  enough. 

The  size  and  architectural  features  of  the 
building  varied  with  the  populousness,  wealth, 
and  liberality  of  the  district.  Judged  by  the 
standard  of  the  present  day,  they  were  all  too 
small.     It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  more 


96     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

than  a  hundred  children  crowded  into  a  room 
thirty  feet  square.  Bnt  the  internal  arrangement 
made  crowding  easy.  In  the  rural  districts  the 
fireplace  and  the  door  often  occupied  one  end  of 
the  room.  In  the  middle  of  one  side  was  the 
teacher's  desk.  Against  the  wall,  on  three  ^ides, 
was  a  slightly  sloping  shelf,  with  a  horizontal 
one  below,  and  a  bench  without  back  in  front. 
On  the  bench  the  older  pupils  sat ;  on  the  sloping 
shelf  they  wrote;  on  the  one  below  they  kept 
their  books.  Thus,  in  writing,  they  faced  the 
wall.  Another  lower  bench  in  front  served  for  a 
seat  for  the  younger  pupils  who  did  not  write. 

Thus  the  school  was  arranged  on  three ^de"g 
of  a  hollow  square.  How  many  pupilsHrhe  room 
could  hold  depended  on  how  closely  the  children 
could  be  packed  upon  the  benches.  In  the  cen- 
ter of  the  square  the  classes  stood  for  recitation. 

In  another  type  of  schoolroom  the  seats  were 
arranged  in  long  rows  across  the  room,  in  ter- 
races, the  back  seats  only  having  desks  in  front ; 
the  older  scholars  thus  overlooked  the  younger 
ones,  the  teacher  having  an  elevated  platform 
opposite.  The  descent  of  the  pupils  from  their 
high  seat  to  the  floor,  coming  in  contact,  perhaps, 
with  some  unconsciously  extended  foot,  was  often 
sudden  and  precipitate. 

The  seats  and  desks  were  of  native  wood,  pine 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL   AND   THE  ACADEMY.       97 

or  oak,  worked  out  by  hand,  unpainted,  never 
elegant,  often  rude  in  the  extreme.  When  the 
carpenter's  work  ended  the  boys'  work  began, 
and  in  process  of  time  the  furniture  was  carved 
with  an  elaboration  of  tracery  which  the  most 
enthusiastic  devotee  of  Sloyd  might  hope  in  vain 
to  excel. 

^--TEe  amount  of  s.chooling  enjoyed  in  any  dis- 
trict depended,  first,  upon  the  liberality^of  the 
town  in  itsr  annuar  appropriation ;  and,  second, 
upon  the  method  of  distributioii  which  the  towns 
adopted.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  State  never 
prescribed  the  mode  in  which  the  school  money 
should  be  apportioned  among  the  districts.  An 
interesting  statement,  prepared  by  Mr.  Mann  and 
published  in  his  eighth  report,*  sets  the  indi- 
viduality of  the  towns  in  the  clearest  light. 

More  than  thirty  different  modes  of  appor- 
tionment are  reported :  in  one  town,  according 
to  the  number  of  houses  in  the  district ;  in 
others,  according  to  the  number  of  families ;  in 
several,  the  number  of  ratable  polls  was  the  basis 
of  division ;  and  in  one,  the  number  of  able-bodied 
persons  over  twenty-one,  not  paupers.  In  many 
towns  the  money  was  divided  equally  ;  in  others, 

*  Eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, p.  79. 


98     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  basis  was  the  number  of  children  of  school 
age  ;  and  in  as  many  more  the  districts  received 
back  what  they  had  paid  in  taxes.  These  last 
two  methods  bore  heavily  upon  the  poorer  and 
the  more  sparsely  populated  districts.  A  major- 
ity of  the  towns  endeavored  to  equalize  the  school 
privileges  by  combining  two  or  more  of  these 
methods,  distributing  a  part  equally,  and  a  part 
according  to  the  valuation  or  the  number  of  chil- 
dren, or  both.  Frequently  a  sum  was  set  aside 
to  be  used  at  the  discretion  of  the  selectmen  or 
the  school  committee  to  aid  the  poorer  districts. 

But,  in  spite  of  this,  there  were  districts  whose 
school  money  was  the  merest  pittance.  As  late 
as  1844  several  districts  are  reported  as  receiving 
less  than  ten  dollars,  and  one'  received  only  five 
dollars  and  sixty  cents,  to  provide  its  children 
with  schooling  for  a  year !  Each  district  aimed 
to  get  the  most  for  its  money ;  quality  and  quan- 
tity were  likely  to  be  in  inverse  proportion.  A 
cheaper  teacher  meant  more  weeks  of  school ;  so 
that  the  phrase  by  which  the  law  described  the 
work  of  the  prudential  committee,  ^^  to  contract 
with  the  teacher,^^  was  most  expressive. 

In  the  largest  towns  the  schools  "  kept ''  the 
most  of  the  year.  In  the  great  majority  there 
was  a  winter  term  of  ten  or  twelve  weeks,  at- 
tended by  the  older  children,  and  kept  by  a  mas- 


DISTRICT   SCHOOL   AND   THE  ACADEMY.       99 

ter ;  and  a  summer  term  of  equal  length,  kept  by 
a  woman,  for  the  benefit  chiefly  of  the  little  ones. 
In  the  poorer  towns  a  single  term  of  two.or  three 
months  was  all  that  was  furnished,  and  some  of 
the  poorest  districts  had  but  a  few  weeks. 

During  the  period  under  consideration  ..there 
was  some  broadening  of  the  school-work.  Up  to 
1789  the  elementary  schools  had  been  required  to 
teach  only  reading  and  writing;  most  of  them 
had  taught  the  boys  some  arithmetic ;  the  new 
law  made  arithmetic  compulsory,  and  added  the 
English  language,  orthography,  and  decent  be- 
havior. In  1827  geography  was  required  for  the 
first  time. 

Ear]yjn_jfchjB  _^  .  Gat^,QMsm, 

the  Psalter^,  and  the  Bible- were  almost  univer- 
sally displaced  by  the  Spelling-"-Boofe-€ba€lr-4fee'- 
Reader.  This  change  had  been  going  on  grad- 
ually for  many  years.  The  general  unity  of  re- 
ligious doctrine  which  had  characterized  the  peo- 
ple during  the  first  century  had  given  place  to  a 
diversity.  Within  the  churches  themselves  theo- 
logical views  became  rife  which  to  the  stanch 
adherents  of  the  old  faith  recalled  the  ancient 
heresy  of  Arius  and  the  more  recent  though  not 
less  dangerous  errors  of  Socinius  and  Arminius. 
During  the  French  and  Indian  wars  contact  with 
British  army  officers  had  leavened  the  communi- 


100    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

ty  with  the  prevalent  English  deism,  and  during 
the  Revolution,  and  subsequently,  the  friendly 
association  with  France  had  scattered  widely  the 
more  pronounced  infidelity  of  the  French  philos- 
ophers. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  changes  in  senti- 
ment the  Calvinistic  New  England  Primer  gave 
way  almost  everywhere  to  the  Spelling  Book — j 
chiefly  Perry^s  or  Dilworth^s,  both  of  English 
origin ;  these  in  their  turn  yielding  place  to  that 
most  famous  American  classic,  the  blue-backed 
Spelling  Book  of  Noah  Webster.  Not  without- 
strenuous  opposition  in  some  towns  the  Psalter 
and  the  Bible  were  replaced  by  some  of  the  many 
reading  books  which  began  to  be  made  soon  after 
the  Revolution,  and  which  have  been  ^pouring 
forth  in  ever-increasing  numbers  to  the  present 
time. 

Pre-eminent  among  these  early  readers  were 
The  American  Preceptor  and  The  Columbian 
Orator;  and,  later.  The  American  First  Class 
Book  had  wide  acceptance.  The  titles  of  the 
books  appealed  to  the  national  spirit,  evoked  by 
the  stirring  events  of  the  Revolutionary  and  Con- 
stitution-making period,  while  the  contents  of 
the  books  were  adapted  to  foster  and  develop  the 
same  spirit. 
/  For  example.  The  Columbian  Orator  contained 


DISTRICT  SCHOOlu  AKD .  dAt  ''ift'CJtDBMk    IQl 

that  famous  speech  of  Colonel  Barre  on  the 
Stamp  Act,  in  which  he  so  indignantly  denied 
the  assertions  of  Townshend  that  the  colonies 
had  been  planted  by  the  care,  nourished  by  the 
indulgence,  and  protected  by  the  arms  of  the 
mother  country.  It  contained  no  less  than  seven 
extracts  from  the  speeches  of  Pitt  in  opposition 
to  the  measures  of  George  III  and  his  ministers. 
It  had  speeches  by  Fox  and  Sheridan  and  Er- 
skine;  it  had  parts  of  the  address  of  President 
Carnot  at  the  festival  in  Paris  which  celebrated 
the  successful  establishment  of  the  French  Re- 
public, and  the  congratulatory  address  to  the 
United  States  in  the  same  year,  with  Washing- 
ton's reply,  and  it  had  the  most  significant  por- 
tions of  Washington's  Farewell  Address. 

The  First  Class  Book,  if  less  stirring  in  its  ap- 
peal to  patriotism,  introduced  the  pupils  to  the 
newly  risen  stars  of  American  literature  in  the 
prose  of  Irving,  the  poetry  of  Bryant,  and  the 
pulpit  oratory  of  Buckminster  and  Channing; 
while  in  Scott  and  Byron  and  Campbell  they  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  newest  in  the  litera- 
ture of  England. 

The  importance  of  this  change  in  the  New 
England  schools  can  not  be  overestimated.  Its 
influence  was  deep  and  abiding.  The  substitu- 
tion of  the  selfish  and  sordid  aphorisms  of  Frank- 


102    MASSA'MUSB^raiS : PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

lin  for  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon  and  the  divine 
precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  the  dec- 
lamations of  Webster  and  Pitt  for  the  lofty  pa- 
triotism of  Moses  and  Isaiah ;  the  feeble  reason- 
ing in  ethics  of  Mrs.  Barbauld  and  Hannah  More 
for  the  compact  logic  of  Paul's  Epistles;  the  tin- 
sel glitter  of  Byron  for  the  upspringing  devotion 
of  David;  and  the  showy  scene-painting  in  the 
narratives  of  Scott  for  the  simplicity  of  the  gos- 
pel story  of  the  life  of  Christ — such  a  substitu- 
tion could  not  take  place  without  modifying, 
subtly  but  surely,  all  the  life  currents  of  the 
community. 

Not  only  in  language,  but  in  arithmetic,  books 
by  native  authors  superseded  those  in  use.  In 
place  of  Hodder's,  which  had  been  common,  the 
famous  treatise  prepared  by  Nicholas  Pike,  of 
Newburyport,  and  published  in  that  town  in 
1788,  gained  wide  acceptance,  aided,  no  doubt,  by 
flattering  testimonials  from  George  Washington, 
Governor  Bowdoin,  and  the  Presidents  of  Har- 
vard, Yale,  and  Dartmouth  Colleges.  It  was  a 
portentous  volume  of  five  hundred  and  twelve 
pages,  almost  encyclopedic  in  its  mathematical 
range.  Besides  arithmetic  proper,  it  introduced 
the  student  to  algebra,  geometry,  trigonometry, 
and  conic  sections.  Applications  of  the  arith- 
metic are  made  to  problems  in  all  forms  of  me- 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND   THE   ACADEMY.     103 

chanics,  gravity,  pendulmn,  mechanical  powers, 
and  to  such  astronomical  problems  as  the  calcu- 
lation of  the  moon^s  age,  and  the  time  of  its 
phases,  the  time  of  high  water,  and  the  date  of 
Easter. 

The  labor  involved  in  the  computation  of 
ordinary  business  transactions  at  this  period  is 
almost  appalling.  The  money  units  were  the 
English ;  two  pages  only  are  given  to  Federal 
money,  as  it  was  called,  which  Congress  had  just 
established  but  which  had  not  come  into  general 
use,  Mne  kinds  of  currency  were  in  use  in  com- 
mercial transactions,  and  the  students  of  this 
arithmetic  were  taught  to  express .  each  in  terms 
of  the  others,  making  seventy-two  distinct  rules 
to  be  learned  and  applied. 

Under  the  title  Practice,  which  is  described 
as  "  an  easy  and  concise  method  of  working  most 
questions  which  occur  in  trade  and  business,'^ 
the  learner  is  required  to  commit  a  page  of 
tables  of  aliquot  parts  of  pounds  and  shillings, 
of  hundredweights  and  tons,  and  a  table  of  per 
cents  of  the  pound  in  shillings  and  pence.  These 
tables  contain  more  than  a  hundred  relations, 
and  the  application  is  in  more  than  thirty-four 
cases,  each  with  a  rule,  of  which  the  following  is 
an  example : 

"  When  the  price  is  shillings,  pence,  and  far- 


104:    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

things,  and  not  an  even  part  of  a  pound,  multi- 
ply the  given  quantity  by  the  shillings  in  the 
price  of  one  yard,  etc.,  and  take  parts  of  parts 
from  the  quantity  for  the  pence,  etc.,  then  add 
them  together,  and  their  sums  will  be  the  answer 
in  shillings,  etc.^^ 

Under  the  topic  ''  Tare  and  Trett  ^'  is  the  fol- 
lowing rule,  unintelligible  to  the  present  genera- 
tion : 

^'  Deduct  the  tare  and  trett,  divide  the  suttle 
by  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight,  and  the  quotient 
will  be  the  cloff,  which  subtract  from  the  suttle, 
and  the  remainder  will  be  the  neat.'^ 

This  book  gave  tone  to  all  the  arithmetic 
study  of  the  district-school  period,  and  is  respon- 
sible for  that  excessive  devotion  to  arithmetic 
which  has  of  late  been  the  subject  of  just  com- 
plaint, jit  is  characterized  by  an  almost  endless 
elaboration  of  cases  and  prescription  of  rules.V 
There  are  fourteen  rules  under  simple  multipli- 
cation, and  in  all  the  book  three  hundred  and 
sixty-two.  \The  understanding  of  the  pupil  is 
taxed,  and  sometimes  severely,  to  grasp  the  mean- 
ing of  the  rulc^No  hint  of  a  reason  for  the  rule 
is  given,  exceptXm  an  occasional  foot-not^  but 
there  are  problems  which  tax  the  mathematical 
capacity  to  the  utmost.  \ 

A  majority  of  the  district-school   pupils,  es- 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.     105 

pecially  the  girls,  ciphered  only  through  the  four 
fundamental  rules,  with  a  short  excursion  into . 
vulgar  fractions.  If  they  penetrated  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  rule  of  three,  they  were  ac- 
counted mathematicians ;  and  if  in  later  and  de- 
generate days  one  ciphered  through  Old  Pike,  he 
was  accounted  a  prodigy ;  and  if  he  aspired  to 
teach^U  doors  were  open  to  him. 
l^^TsunmsiT  and  geography  were  learned  in  al- 
most all  the  schools,  though  not  by  all  the  pupils. 
Harvard  College,  in  1816,  extended  its  require- 
ments for  admission  to  include  a  knowledge  of 
ancient  and  modern  geography.  This  forced  it 
into  the  fitting  schools,  and  made  it  attractive 
to  the  more  ambitious  students  in  the  districts. 
Morse's  Geography  was  most  common,  and  Mur-  j 
ray's  Grammar  in  some  of  its  many  abridgments.  I 
The  study  of  grammar  culminated  in  parsing,! 
and  Pope's  Essay  on  Man"^aTiti-Milton%-Pa;radise 
Lost  became  familiar  hunting  grounds  for  the 
pursuit  of  linguistic  subtleties,  and  arenas  for 
the  display  of  grammatical  jugglers  and  acrobats. 
Spelling  had  been  little  taught,  but  in  the 
period  which  we  are  describing  it  became  a  craze, 
absorbing  into  itself  most  of  the  interest  and  en- 
thusiasm of  the  schools.  Not  only  in  the  regular 
school  exercises  was  it  prominent,  bub  it  over- 
flowed its  bounds  and  reveled  in  evening  spelling 


106    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

schools,  and  brought  into  rivalry  and  friendly 
combat  neighboring  districts,  which  sent  their 
champions  to  contend  in  orthographic  tourna- 
ments, ~  — - 

Dfthe  teachers  of  these  schools  there  were 
three  classes.  A  majority  of  the  winter  schools 
were  kept  by  men  who  might  be  called  semi-pro- 
fessional teachers ;  that  is,  they  reckoned  on  the 
wages  of  a  winter's  teaching  as  a  regular  part  of 
their  annual  income.  In  a  certain  irregular  way 
many  of  them  were  itinerants.  In  the  course  of 
a  long  life  they  taught  in  all  the  districts  of  a 
number  of  contiguous  to^pis — sometim"es  keeping 
the  same  school  for  two  or  three  successive  win- 
ters, making  a  new  contract  each  time.  There 
were  many  roving  characters,  who  journeyed 
more  widely,  in  search  of  novelty  or  because  a 
prophet  is  more  honored  among  strangers  than 
in  his  own  country.  Such  a  one  was  Ichabod 
Crane,  a  Connecticut  schoolmaster,  but  domesti- 
cated in  Sleepy  Hollow.  During  the  larger  part 
of  the  year  these  men  were  engaged  in  farming 
or  in  some  mechanical  industry. 

Another  class  was  made  up  of  students,  who, 
by  dint  of  labor  in  the  district  schools  in  the 
winter  and  in  the  hayfield  in  the  summer,  con- 
trived to  work  their  way  through  the  academy 
and  the   college.     So  the   students  of  medicine 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE   ACADEMY.     109 

and  law  and  divinity  helped  to  pay  their  way. 
There  are  few  of  the  older  professional  men  to- 
day who,  among  the  reminiscences  of  their  callow 
youth,  have  not  some  associated  with  their  keep- 
ing a  district  school. 

The  summer  schools  were  almost  always  kept 
by  women.  A  majority  of  these  were  young, 
ambitious  girls,  eager  for  a  term  at  the  academy, 
which  they  must  earn  or  go  without — independ- 
ent girls,  who  liked  to  show  that  they  could  do 
something  for  their  own  support  in  the  only  way 
then  open  to  them.  For  most  of  these  good  men 
were  waiting,  and  they  found  iample  room  to  ex- 
ercise all  their  powers  and  to  satisfy  their  noblest 
ambitions  in  making  homes.  For  some,  alas ! 
Providence  planned  no  such  career,  and  they 
grew  old  and  passed  into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf 
as  ^^  schoolmarms  '^  —  sometimes  sweetening  as 
they  ripened,  sometimes  quite  the  contrary. 

The  wages  of  the  teachers  varied  widely.  Ten 
or  twelve  dollars  a  month  was  common,  though 
in  rare  cases,  in  wealthy  districts,  a  man  of  expe- 
rience and  more  than  usual  culture  earned  twen- 
ty. Women  received  from  four  to  ten  dollars. 
Besides  this  money  payment  the  districts  boarded 
the  teachers.  By  this  arrangement  the  district 
supplemented  the  scanty  town  appropriation  and 
secured   a  longer   school.     Usually  the  teacher 


^MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

boarded  round "  among  the  parents  of  his  pu- 
pils, proportioning  his  time  to  the  number  of 
children  who  attended  his  school.  Under  these 
conditions  the  master  acquired  a  knowledge  of 
family  history,  an  acquaintance  with  the  domes- 
tic affairs  of  the  neighborhood,  which  even  the 
doctor  and  the  minister  might  envy.  He  learned 
discretion  and  a  power  of  self-adaptation  as  he 
passed  from  the  more  comfortable  homes  of  inde- 
pendence and  refinement,  through  all  the  social 
grades,  finding  taste  and  neatness  and  intelli- 
gence among  the  poor,  coarse  abundance  asso- 
ciated with  ignorance,  and  sometimes  shiftless- 
ness  and  poverty  and  pride  going  hand  in  hand. 
Time  would  fail  to  describe  the  agonies  and  de- 
lights of  this  most  unique  system. 

As  to  the  qualifications  required  to  teach 
these  district  schools,  the  law  made  good  moral 
character  and  competence  to  teach  the  branches 
indispensable;  but  custom  and  necessity  pre- 
scribed two  others,  which  obscured  the  legal  de- 
mand. For  women,  the  surest  passport  to  em- 
ployment was  to  be  related  by  blood  or  marriage 
to  the  prudential  committee  of  the  district.  His 
daughters  or  his  sisters,  of  course,  had  first  con- 
sideration ;  then  his  nieces,  then  his  wife^s  con- 
nections to  the  remotest  degree  of  consanguinity. 
No  little  friction  sometimes  accompanied  these 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.    109 

family  arrangements,  but  the  district  was  power- 
less until  the  next  annual  meeting,  when  it  might 
choose  another  committeeman,  by  having  votes 
enough,  and  thus  substitute  a  new  dynasty. 

For  men,  to  keep  the  winter  schools,  the  high- 
est qualification  was  pluck.  You  recall  Dr. 
Holmes^s  description  of  the  gladiatorial  combat 
in  the  Pigwacket  school,  in  which  the  master 
•routed  the  combined  forces  of  Abijah  Weeks, 
the  butcher's  son,  and  his  "yallah  dog.''  The 
story  is  a  typical  one.  Ask  any  man  who  has 
taught  a  district  school,  and.  he  will  remember, 
or  imagine  he  does,  just  such  a  scene.  ^^-^ 

Such  life-and-death  struggles  are  as  insepa- 
rably associated  with  the  little  red  schoolhouses 
as  they  are  with  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  amphi- 
theaters. As  the  early  Christians  were  stretched 
by  the  rack,  and  boiled  in  oil,  and  roasted  over 
slow  fires,  and  stung  to  death  by  bees,  and  torn 
to  pieces  by  wild  beasts,  so  the  young  man  begin- 
ning a  term  in  a  new  school  expected  to'  be  tor- 
mented by  the  older  boys.  If,  like  Bernard 
Langdon,  beneath  a  scholarly  exterior,  he  con- 
cealed the  skill  of  a  trained  athlete,  he  might 
surprise  his  antagonist  by  an  unexpected  display 
of  pugilism.  But  if  he  lacked  the  muscle  or  the 
courage,  his  work  as  teacher  came  to  an  igno- 
minious end.     When  the  boys  had  "  put  out "  two 


110    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

or  three  masters  in  succession,  the  school  ac- 
quired a  reputation  of  being  "hard/"  and  the 
committee  were  forced  to  canvass  widely  and 
pay  liberally  for  a  man  who  had  "  fought  with 
beasts  at  Ephesus^^  and  had  conquered.  That 
these  conditions  were  jiot  rare,  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  in,  1837,  more  than  three  hundred  schools 
in  Massachusetts  were  broken  up  by  the  insub- 
ordination of  the  pupils  or  the  incompetence  of 
the  teachers. 

'^  Such,  in  general,  were  the  district  schools. 
We  may  profitably  stay  for  a  moment  to  ask  and 

'  to  answer  the  question.  What  did  they  do  for 
the   education   of  the   Massachusetts    boys  and 

I  girls  ?  Whether  we  mean  by  education  the  ac- 
quisition of  useful  knowledge  merely,  or  the  cul- 
ture of  intellect  and  feeling  and  will  which  ulti- 
mate in  thoughtful,  skillful,  and  righteous  men 
and  women,  we  must  answer  that  these  schools, 
even  the  best  of  them,  did  little. 

Looking  at  Massachusetts  society  in  the  last 
generation,  it  is  easy  to  find  men  of  mark,  pro- 
fessional men  of  great  ability,  and  men  who  laid 
broad  and  deep  the  foundations  of  the  great  busi- 
ness interests  of  our  State,  commercial  and  man- 
ufacturing ;  men  and  women,  too,  capable  of  ap- 
preciating gYQ^X'^kioy^ek^A  ^,  and  rising  to  the 
level  of  the  sublimest  personal  sacrifices  for  the 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY,    m 

sake  of  truth.  It  is  easy,  too,  to  see  that  through 
all  the  communities  where  the  district  schools 
flourished  there  was  a  high  average  of  general 
intelligence  and  moral  thoughtfulness.  Know- 
ing how  prone  we  all  are  to  argue  from  Tenter- 
den  steeple  to  the  Goodwin  Sands — post  hoc,  ergo 
propter  hoc — it  need  not  seem  strange  that  men 
have  argued  that  these  characteristics  of  indi- 
viduals and  communities  were  due  to  the  work 
of  the  district  schools. 

But  if  we  think,  we  are  forced  to  see  that,  if 
every  effect  must  have  an  adequate  cause,  there 
is  no  proportion  of  adequacy  between  the  school 
work  and  these  effects.  The  knowledge  which 
an  average  boy  or  girl  could  acquire  or  retain,  in 
ten  or  twelve  weeks'  study,  for  each  of  ten  or 
twelve  years,  each  period  of  study  separated  from 
the  next  by  forty  weeks  of  something  else,  must 
be  scanty  under  the  best  conditions ;  and  the 
training  of  powers,  mental  or  moral,  could  at 
best  only  be  intermittent  and  desultory. 

But  when  besides  the  meagerness  of  oppor- 
tunity, we  consider  the  unfavorable  physical  con- 
ditions, the  crowded,  unhealthy,  uncomfortable 
rooms,  the  inexperience  and  ignorance  of  most 
of  the  instructors,  the  mechanical  and  dreary, 
often  me'aninglei^H/it  .  -  ».  ^v  which  went  by 
the  name  of  study,  we  are  forced  to  conclude 


112    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

that  other  influences  must  have  been  at  work — 
that  we  may  have  overestimated  the  district 
school. 

The  power  and  majesty  with  which  the  Mis- 
sissippi sweeps  by  New  Orleans  to  the  Gulf  were 
not  brought  by  it  out  of  Lake  Itasca.  But  let  us 
give  the  lake  credit  for  what  it  did  do — it  set  the 
rill  a-flowing.  So  did  the  district  school.  It  gave 
to  the  children  of  the  generation  the  key  to  the 
world's  thought  in  the  world's  literature.  What 
that  key  was  worth  depended  upon  what  use 
they  made  of  it. 

Edmund  Stone,  a  distinguished  man  of  science, 
was  taught  to  read  by  a  servant  of  the  Duke  of 
Argyll.  Here  is  his  story:  "I  first  learned  to 
read;  the  masons  were  then  at  work  on  your 
house.  I  approached  them  one  day,  and  observed 
that  the  architect  used  a  rule  and  compasses,  and 
that  he  made  calculations.  I  inquired  what 
might  be  the  meaning  and  the  use  of  these 
things,  and  I  was  informed  that  there  was  a  sci- 
ence called  arithmetic.  I  purchased  a  book  of 
arithmetic,  and  I  learned  it.  I  was  told  that 
ther  /Tya^s  lother  science  called  geometry.  I 
"■  v  L  cxie  necessary  books,  and  I  learned  geom- 
etry. By  reading,  I  found  that  there  were  good 
books  of  these  two  sciences  in  Latin.  I  bought  a 
dictionary  and  I  learned  Latin.     I  understood. 


BISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.     113 

also,  that  there  were  good  books  of  the  same 
kind  in  French.  I  bought  a  dictionary  and  I 
learned  French.  And  this,  my  lord,  is  what  I 
have  done.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  may  learn 
everything  when  we  know  the  twenty-six  letters 
of  the  alphabet.'^ 

Abraham  Lincoln,  learning  little  bnt  his 
primer  at  school,  found  within  himself  a  hunger 
for  books,  and  in  succession  and  slowly  read  and 
absorbed  the  Bible,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  ^sop's 
Fables,  a  Life  of  Washington,  and  Plutarch's 
Lives.     Here  was  an  education  in  itself. 

So  the  district  school  opened  to  the  children  a 
very  narrow  way  into  the  world's  knowledge — 
set  the  door  just  a  little  ajar.  Where,  back  of 
the  school,  was  a  home  in  which  not  for  twelve 
weeks  but  for  fifty-two,  not  in  winter  alone  but 
all  the  four  seasons  through,  there  was  a  father 
or  a  mother  setting  a  high  value  upon  education, 
because  they  had  it  or  because  they  lacked  it, 
ambitious  for  their  children  and  stimulating 
them  to  do  their  best ;  where,  back  of  the  school, 
was  a  long  line  of  educated  ancestry;  planting  in 
the  children  scholarly  instincts  and  ;^brpet  ing 
them  through  generations,  blood  aiways  t(  ri^ 
— the  blood  of  country  doctors  and  lawyers  and 
ministers  and  teachers:  where  these  conditions 
axisted  the  door  was  pushed  wider  open,  and  in 


114    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

broader  fields  of  opportunity  the  work  of  educa- 
tion went  on. 

Sometimes  there  came  into  the  life  of  the 
pupils  in  these  schools  a  personal  influence  strong 
and  lasting.  Some  gentle,  patient,  sweet-voiced 
and  sweet-mannered  girl,  teaching  the  little  ones 
in  a  summer  school,  so  impressed  her  personality 
upon  their  minds  and  hearts  that  they  worshiped 
her.  Through  all  their  lives  they  reverenced 
womanhood  as  idealized  in  her.  I  have  heard 
old  men  speak  of  such  with  tears,  showing  that 
her  image  in  their  memory  has  over  it  the  saintly 
nimbus.  Among  the  student  teachers,  too,  were 
ardent,  enthusiastic  ones,  full  of  moral  earnest- 
ness, who  struck  fire  when  they  found  a  flint; 
who  appreciated  the  scholarly  instincts  when 
they  found  them,  encouraged  the  boys  and  girls, 
gave  them  special  help  and  direction,  and  drew 
them  to  higher  levels  of  thought  and  action. 

But  for  the  slow  and  the  dull,  for  the  chil- 
dren of  ignorant  parents  with  no  heredity  for 
culture,  especially  in  the  remoter  districts,  the 
district  school  scarcely  threw  a  glimmer  into  the 
darkness.  \ 

Two  positive  evils  resulted  from  the  district 
system,  where  it  was  fully  established.  It  was 
fatal  to  a  broad  and  generous  public  spirit. 
iWhen  the  conduct  of  church  affairs  had  been 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE   ACADEMY.     115 

given  to  the  parish,  the  care  of  roads  and  the 
care  of  schools  to  the  districts,  there  was  little 
left  to  the  town  to  do,  and  the  town  spirit  waned 
before  the  narrow  and  petty  local  interests.  The 
spirit  of  progress  during  the  last  half  century 
has  found  in  this  narrowest  of  provincialisms  its 
most  persistent  and  bitterest  opposition.  This 
has  been  true  not  only  in  educational  matters, 
but  along  all  lines  of  social  and  business  develop- 
ment. There  came  to  be  among  the  distri(fts  a 
jealousy  of  each  other,  and  in  the  smaller  and 
outlying  districts  a  suspicion  and  jealousy  of  the 
central  and  more  populous  districts,  which  effec- 
tually hindered  the  progress  of  reform.  A  looker- 
on  in  the  town  meetings  would  be  impressed  by 
the  dog-in-the-manger  spirit  which  often  charac- 
terized the  words  and  votes  of  the  people  who 
lived  outside  the  village  centers.  What  they 
could  not  personally  enjoy  they  would  combine 
to  prevent  others  from  enjoying.  This  is  one 
cause  of  the  d^adness  and  decay  of  towns.  From 
a  social  consideration  the  creation  of  the  district 
as  a  political  unit  was^n^iiiiiiuxfid  evil. 

On  the  educational  side  the  most  conspicuous 
effect  of  the  disintegration  of  the  towns  was  the 
disappearance  of  ijie  old  grammar  schools.  The 
law  of  1789,  notwithstanding  it  freed  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  towns  from  the  ancient  obliga- 


I 


116     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

tion  to  provide  free  classical  instruction,  still  left 
that  obligation  upon  one  hundred  and  ten  towns. 
But  in  1824  *  a  new  statute  exempted,  too,  from 
this  burden  all  towns  having  less  than  five  thou- 
sand inhabitants.  At  this  time  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  towns  should  have  been  employing 
a  master  competent  to  instruct  in  Latin  and 
Greek.  The  new  law  left  but  seven  towns  in  the 
State  legally  bound  to  furnish  any  education 
higher  than  the  rudiments.  These  were  all  com- 
mercial towns :  Boston,  Charlestown,  Salem,  Mar- 
blehead,  Gloucester,  Newburyport,  and  Nantuck- 
et. As  the  name  grammar  school  disappeared 
from  the  statutes,  the  institution  itself  also  faded 
out  of  the  memory  of  the-^people,  and  practically 
there  was  litfe  public  recognition  of  the  value  or 
need  of  a  li/jer- 1  education.  Indeed,  in  the  gram- 
mar schools  which  were  still  maintained  there 
were  but  few  Latin  "  scholars.'^  In  the  Roxbury 
school,  in  1770,  of  eighty-five  pupils  but  nine 
were  studying  Latin  ;  and  in  Newburyport,  at  a 
later  period,  there  were  but  five  Latiners  in  a 
school  of  sixty  children. 

Several  influences  had  probably  combined  to 
produce  this  reaction.  There  had  been  a  growing 
indisposition  thj^oughout  the  eighteenth  century 

• : J 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  February  18,  1824.  | 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.    117 

to  support  the  grammar  schools.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  district  system  had  made  it  less  easy 
for  all  the  people  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  a  sin- 
gle school — a  moving  grammar  school  could  not 
have  been  a  success — and  local  jealousy  made  the 
people  unwilling  to  plant  in  one  district  what  all 
the  districts  could  not  equally  enjoy. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  century  began  that 
migration  from  the  towns  to  Boston,  when  coun- 
try boys  who  had  learned  industry  and  frugality 
on  the  farms,  in  spite  of  the  limited  opportunities 
for  education,  laid  the  foundations  for  princely 
fortunes.  From  1810  to  1830  Boston  gained  near- 
ly one  hundred  per  cent  in  population.  Emerson 
has  sung,  "Things  arc  in  the  saddle  and  rule 
mankind.''  Already  "things''  wei^  mounting, 
and  material  success  gained  by  n^>ii"#i'th  scanty 
learning  made  literary  culture  seem  a  luxury 
rather  than  a  necessity. 

The  ministers  were  less  potential  than  in  the 
early  days,  and  could  do  less  to  stem  the  current. 
More  than  this:  an  itinerant  clergy,  full  of  re- 
ligious zeal,  though  illiterate,  by  the  contrast  of 
its  spiritual  fervor  with  the  coldness  of  the  more 
highly  educated  regular  ministers,  tended  to 
bring  college  learning  into  disrepute.  Added  to 
all  these  was  the  poverty  which  followed  the 
Revolution,  and  from  which  in  the  first  quarter 


118    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

of  the  century  the  people  at  large  were  only  just 

recovering.      Public   spirit   was    not  broad  and 

\     high  enough  to  induce  people  to  tax  themselves 

\   for  what   all   could  not  enjoy  and   what   many 

^eemed  unnecessary. 

.^    While  the  free  public   schools  were  in  this 
I  [state  of  decline,  a  new  institution  came  into  be- 
lling— the  incorporated  academy.     It  has  an  hon- 
\  orable  place  in   Massachusetts  history.      In  its 
j  inception  it  reminds  us  of  the  early  grammar 
schools  in  England.     In  1761  William  Dummer, 
♦dying  in  Boston,  left  by  will  his  mansion  house 
*and  farm  in  Newbury  for  the  establishment  of  a 
free  school  to  be  maintained  forever  pn  the  es- 
tate.    This  William  Dummer  *  came  of  an  an- 
cient  and  honorable    colonial  family,  and  had 
been  Lieutenant  Governor  during   some  of  the 
stormiest  years  which  preceded  the  Revolution. 
He  had  received  his  own  education  in  the  Boston 
Latin  School,  and  later  had  resided  for  several 
years  in  England,  where  he  probably  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  form  of  school  which  he  after- 
ward founded,  and  where  perhaps  he  first  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  his  own  benefaction. 

In  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  will,  the 

*  First  Century  of  Dummer  Academy.     A  Historical  Dis- 
course by  Nehemiah  Cleveland,  Boston,  1865. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE   ACADEMY.     II9 

Dummer  Free  School  was  opened  in  1763,  and 
Samuel  Moody  was  called  from  York  to  be  its 
first  master.  Among  Master  Moody's  earliest 
pupils  was  Samuel  Phillips,  of  Andover.*  Fitted 
for  college  at  the  Dummer  School,  he  gradu- 
ated from  Harvard  at  nineteen.  He  at  once 
took  an  active  part,  with  Samuel  Adams  and 
John  Hancock,  in  the  Massachusetts  Provincial 
Congress,  and  during  the  succeeding  years  of 
the  Revolution  he  was  ardently  serving  the  colo- 
nial cause.  At  the  same  time  he  was  preparing 
for  loftier  service.  Through  his  influence  a 
school  was  founded  at  Andover,  in  1778,  by  the 
munificent  gift  of  three  brothers,  Samuel  Phillips, 
of  Andover,  John  Phillips,  of  Exeter,  and  Wil- 
liam Phillips,  of  Boston.  It  was  called  the  Phil- 
lips School,  but  in  1780  it  was  incorporated  by  the 
Legislature  under  the  name  Phillips  Academy. 
Two  years  later  the  Dummer  School  was  also  in- 
corporated under  the  new  name  Dummer  Acad- 
emy. 

The  use  of  the  word  academy  as  applied  to 
these  new  schools  has  been  traced  by  the  late 
Rev.  Charles  Hammond,  of  Monson,  to  the  en- 
dowed schools  of  the  English  dissenters,  f     These 

*  Taylor's  Memoir  of  Judge  Phillips,  Boston,  1856.  * 

f  New  England  Academies  and  Classical  Schools,  by  Rev. 


120    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

people  had  been  excluded  from  the  old  founda- 
tion schools^  and  had  been  forced  to  provide  clas- 
sical training  for  themselves.  Mr.  Hammond 
suggests  that  they  probably  received  their  first 
suggestion  of  a  name  for  their  new  institutions 
from  Milton^'s  Tractate  on  Education,  in  which 
the  great  dissenter  called  his  ideal  school  an 
academy. 

Following  close  upon  the  incorporation  of 
Phillips  and  Dummer  came  the  founding  of  the 
scarcely  less  famous  Leicester  Academy,*  in  1784, 
and  in  rapid  succession  Derby,  Bristol,  Marble- 
head,  Westford,  Westfield,  Plymouth,  and  New 
Salem.  To  three  of  these,  in  its  act  of  incorpora- 
tion, the  State  had  given  a  grant  of  land  in  the 
District  of  Maine.  Petitions  for  similar  aid 
came  from  other  towns,  and  in  1797  f  it  became 
necessary  for  the  State  to  determine  the  relation 
of  these  schools  ta^^the  public,  that  a  uniform 
policy  might  be  established  by  the  Common- 
wealth in  its  dealing  with  them.  \  The  subject 
was  referred  to  a  committee  which  reported 
through  Nathan  Dane,  of  Beverly,  a /inan  who 

Charles  Hammond,  A.  M.,  in  Barnard's  Journgil  of  Education, 

vol.  xvi,  p.  403. 

*  Washburn's  History  of  Leicester  Academy,  Boston,  1855.  ^ 
f  Resolves  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  February, 

1797. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.     121 

had  achieved  a  national  reputation  as  the  author 
in  the  Continental  Congress  of  the  Resolution  of 
1787,  by  which  the  Northwest  Territory  was  set 
apart  for  freedom. 

This  report  favored  the  continuance  of  the 
plan  of  giving  State  aid  to  the  amount  of  a  half 
township  to  academies  founded  under  certain 
conditions : 

1.  There  must  be  a  neighborhood  of  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  inhabitants,  not  accommodated 
by  existing  acadeniies. 

2.  State  grants  should  only  be  in  aid  of  schools 
which  had  a  permanent  fund  contributed  by 
towns  or  individuals. 

3.  All  parts  of  the  State  should  share  alike 
in  the  distribution  of  State  aid. 

The  Legislature  adopted  the  report,  and  the 
incorporated  academies  became  in  a  sense  public 
schools.  From  this  they  increased  so  rapidly 
that  before  1840  one  hundred  and  twelve  acts  of 
incorporation  had  passed  the  Legislature,  author- 
izing academies  in  eighty-eight  towns,*  though 
not  all  were  opened.  They  were  in  every  county. 
Essex  had  twelve,  Middlesex  fourteen,  Norfolk 
eight,  Plymouth  nine,  Bristol  three,  Worcester 

*  See  Report  on  Academies,  by  George  A.  Walton,  Agent  of 
the  Board  of  Education,  in  the  Fortieth  Report  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Board  of  Education,  p.  174. 


J22    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM.       . 

ten^  Franklin  five,  Hampshire  six,  Hampden  six, 
Berkshire  eight,  Barnstable  five,  Dnkes  two,  and 
Nantucket  one. 

The  spirit  which  founded  the  earlier  acade- 
mies was  a  resurrection ;  it  was  the  spirit  which 
moved  in  John  Eliot  to  cry  out,  in  his  prayer  at 
the  synod  at  Cambridge:  "Lord,  for  schools 
everywhere  among  us;  that  our  schools  may 
flourish;  that  every  member  of  this  Assembly 
may  go  home  and  procure  a  good  school  to  be 
encouraged  in  the  town  in  which  he  lives.^^  It 
was  the  spirit  which  dictated  the  dying  bequest 
of  John  Harvard;  which  led  the  Connecticut 
ministers  to  lay  down  their  books  on  the  table 
at  Branf ord,  saying, "  I  give  these  books  to  found 
a  college  in  this  colony/^  It  was  the  spirit  of 
John  Knox  and  of  Martin  Luther.  It  was  a  lofty 
Christian  patriotism,  as  sagacious  as  it  was  fer- 
vent, as  practical  as  it  was  devout.  It  was  that 
Puritanism  which  is  as  old  as  the  ages,  resting 
upon  the  solid  foundations,  the  glory  of  God  and 
the  welfare  of  man.  No  one  can  read  the  story 
of  Judge  Phillips  and  Ebenezer  Crafts  without 
being  moved  to  thank  God  and  take  courage. 

The  purpose  of  the  founders  was  primarily  to 
provide  a  means  by  which  young  men  could  be 
fitted  for  college,  and  through  it  for  the  require- 
ments of  public  and  professional  life.     When 


DISTRICT   SCHOOL   AND   THE   ACADEMY.     123i 

Leicester  Academy  was  founded  there  was  not 
[  in  all  WorcestejLQpunty  an  educational  institu- 
tion higher  than  the  district  schools.  The  few 
boys  who  were  fitted  for  college  learned  their 
Latin  and  Greek  by  their  own  firesides  or  as  they 
followed  the  plow,  and  they  recited  them  to  the 
parish  ministers. 

But  there  was  a  broader  purpose  underlying 
this  movement.  It  was  the  ^ope  of  the  founders 
that  public  sentiment  might  be  stimulated,  and 
that  a  higher  educational  standard  might  be  set 
up.  By  piittin^b^efore  the  youtE^r~the"country 
opportunities  for  education,  they  hoped  to  create 
a  desire  for  it;  and  they  aimedTcT furnish  to'stu- 
dents  who  could  not  go  to  college  the  elements, 
at  least,  of  a  liberal  education. 

This  is  apparent  from  the  li"st  of  studies  which 
was  included  in^ihe^acts  of  foundation :  *  Eng- 
lish, Latin,  Greek,  and  French  languages ;  writ- 
ing, arithmetic,  and  geography ;  the  art  of  speak- 
ing; practical  geometry,  logic,  and  philosophy; 
while  the  possibility  of  future  growth  was  pro- 
vided for  by  the  general  clause,  '^Such  other 
liberal  arts  and  sciences  as  the  trustees  shall 
direct.'^ 

These    schools    realized    the    most    sanguine 


►  "Washburn's  History  of  Leicester  Academy,  p.  12. 
10 


124    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

hopes  of  their  founders,  and  justified  the  liber- 
ality of  public  and  private  benefactors.  In  their 
history  English  history  repeated  itself.  A  few 
with  ampler  endowments,  and  under  the  impulse 
of  abler  men,  took  a  front  rank,  as  Eton  and 
Harrow  and  Rugby  had  done,  and  drew  their 
students  from  a  wider  constituency,  becoming  in 
a  broad  sense  public  schools.  Others  became  only 
centers  of  local  interest — mere  day  schools  for 
town  pupils. 

But  they  all  in  varying  degree  fulfilled  their 
mission.  They  fitted  for  college,  and  served  alike 
the  church  and  state.  Dummer,  under  its  first 
master,  e'ducated  fifteen  members  of  Congress, 
two  Chief/Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  one 
President  of  Harvard  College,  and  four  college 
professors.  Leicester,  in  1847,  had  fitted  four 
Governors,  three  Supreme  Court  judges,  one  col- 
lege president,  and  five  college  professors.  Mon- 
son  numbers  among  its  alumni  more  than  two 
hundred  ministers  of  the  gospel. 

But  besides  this  work  as  fitting  schools,  the 
academies  had  an  immeasurable  influence  in 
broadening  non-college  students.  They  reached 
an  immense  multitude  of  young  people.  In  1786 
Leicester  had  received  from  six  to  eight  thousand 
pupils,  of  whom  perhaps  four  hundred  had  been 
fitted  for  college;  Westfield  had  sent  out  over 


DISTRICT   SCHOOL   AND   THE   ACADEMY.     125 

eight  thousand  persons;  Lawrence,  at  Groton, 
nearly  eight  thousand ;  New  Salem  not  less  than 
seven  thousand.  In  eighty  or  ninety  years — 
three  generations — these  four  schools  alone  had 
brought  into  a  scholarly  atmosphere,  had  kept 
under  the  instruction  of  scholarly  men  and  wom- 
en, for  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  not  less  than 
thirty  thousand  young  men  and  women — ten 
thousand  to  a  generation ;  and  these  are  only 
four  of  more  than  a  hundred  such  schools. 

When  we  hear  of  the  scanty  opportunity  af- 
forded to  the  children  \  in  the  first  half  of  the  cen- 
tury— the  few  weeks  iti  the  little  red  schoolhouse 
under  the  ignorant  and  incompetent  instructor — 
we  must  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  in  every 
town  some  of  the  children,  as  they  reached  years 
of  maturity,  were  receiving  the  elements  of  cul- 
ture. A  single  term  at  the  academy  might  serve — 
often  did  serve — to  give  a  new  turn  to  life;  to 
open  the  windows  of  the  mind,  often  of  the  soul, 
to  new  and  refining  influences;  to  make  the 
young  man  or  woman  more  susceptible  to  the 
spirit  of  progress,  which  was  the  spirit  of  the| 
age.  If  we  ask,  in  brief,  what  the  academies  did 
^they  trained  the  leaders  of  two  generations. 

Besides  these  direct  results,  certain  indirect 
and  less  apparent  influences  may  be  traced  to  the 
endowed  schools.     Not  only  did  they  hold  up  a 


126    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

/higher  standard  of  education,  but  also  a  higher 
standard  of  teaching.  The  college-bred  teachers, 
who  had  given  character  to  the  early  grammar 
schools,  had  largely  disappeared,  and  the  district 
schools  furnished  no  opportunity  for  professional 
teachers ;  but  with  the  development  of  the  acad- 
emies a  new  class^  of  teachers  was  developed. 
Master  Moody,  for  twenty-eight  "yeafi' at  Dum- 
mer,  is  a  John  the  Baptist,  "  suggesting  Elias,  or 
one  of  the  old  prophets.^^  He  ranks  with  Ezekiel 
Cheever  and  Elijah  Corlet ;  and  after  him  Nehe- 
miah  Cleveland,  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Joseph  Em- 
erson, Samuel  Taylor,  and  Charles  Hammond. 
^^  There  were  giants  in  those  days.^^ 

It  is  true  that  the  courses  of  study  were  some- 
what pretentious,  and  the  methods  of  instruction 
and  modes  of  administration  would  not  in  all 
respects  commend  themselves  to  our  judgment. 
Josiah  Quincy,  who  went  to  Phillips  in  its  open- 
ing year,  says  that  the  discipline  was  severe  and 
disheartening;  that  there  was  no  consideration 
for  childhood;  that  for  four  years  he  was  tor- 
mented with  studies  not  suited  to  his  years. 
Master  Moody  knew  nothing  but  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  cared  for  nothing  else,  and,  as  one  of 
Marryat's  boys  says  of  his  instructor,  "  he  drove 
learning  into  the  heads  of  his  pupils  as  the  car- 
penter drives  oakum  into  the  seams  of  a  ship.'^ 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL   AND  THE  ACADEMY.     127 

^^If  severe  in  SMgW — and  doubtless  most  of 
them  were — "  the  love  they  bore  to  learning  was 
in  fault/'  But  many  of  them  worked  out  in  their 
own  practice,  and  anticipated  some  of  the  best 
things  in  modern  school  life.  From  them  came 
many  of  the  improved  text-books  of  the  period, 
and  they  were  prime  movers  in  the  formation  of 
the  educational  associations. 

The  broadening  of  the  earlier  educational 
work  in  the  academy  made  it  possible  for  the 
colleges  to  enlarge  the  scope  of  their  training. 
In  1789  no  knowledge,  even  of  common  arith- 
metic, was  required  for  admission  to  Harvard,* 
though  doubtless  it  was  presupposed,  nor  was 
the  candidate  required  to  know 'anything  of  geog- 
raphy. But  in  1814  the  college  called  for  arith- 
metic, through  the  rule  of  three,  and  announced 
that  after  1815  it  would  also  demand  a  knowl- 
edge of  ancient  and  modern  geography.  In  1816 
it  asked  for  the  whole  of  the  arithmetic.  Yale, 
too,  enlarged  its  requirements  about  the  same 
time,  and  both  colleges  developed  largely  the 
English  side  of  their  work.  , 

While  we  recognize  the  potent  agency  of  the\ 
academies  in  raising  the  general  educational  \ 
standard  of  the  time,  we  must  admit  that  in  an-  ' 

*  Leicester  Academy  Centenary,  p.  51,  note  8. 


128    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

other  direction  their  influence  was  less  beneficent. 
By  the  affection  and  respect  which  they  engen- 
dered for  themselves,  they  fostered  the  idea  of 
private  schools,,  and  so  reacted  injuriously. 

Samuel  Adams,  that  man  of  the  people,  early 
scented  danger  in  this  direction.  As  Governor, 
in  1795,  in  his  inaugural  address,  he  said :  *  "It 
is  with  satisfaction  that  I  have  observed  the  pa- 
triotic exertions  of  worthy  citizens  to  establish 
academies  in  various  parts  of  the  Commonwealth. 
It  discovers  a  zeal  highly  to  be  commended.  But 
while  it  is  acknowledged  that  great  advantages 
have  been  derived  from  these  institutions,  per- 
haps it  may  be  justly  apprehended  that  multi- 
plying them  may  have  a  tendency  to  injure  the 
ancient  and  beneficial  mode  of  education  in  town 
grammar  schools. 

"The  peculiar  advantage  of  such  schools  is 
that  the  poor  and  the  rich  may  derive  equal  bene- 
fits from  them;  but  none  excepting  the  more 
wealthy,  generally  speaking,  can  avail  them- 
selves of  the  benefits  of  the  academies.  Should 
these  institutions  detach  the  attention  and  influ- 
ence of  the  wealthy  from  the  generous  support 
of  the  town  schools,  is  it  not  to  be  feared  that 
useful  learning,  instruction,  and  social  feelings 

*  Independent  Chronicle,  Boston,  June  4,  1795.  Resolves  of 
the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  May  Session,  1795. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.     129 

in  the  early  parts  of  life  may  cease  to  be  so 
equally  and  universally  disseminated  as  it  has 
heretofore  been  ? 

"  I  have  thrown  out  these  hints  with  a  degree 
of  diffidence  in  my  own  mind.  You  will  take 
them  into  your  candid  consideration,  if  you  shall 
think  them  worthy  of  it/' 

All  that  Governor  Adams  foresaw  as  possible 
became  actual.  Pseudo-academies  multiplied, 
after  the  type  of  Dr.  Holmes's  Apollinean  Female 
Institute,  and  private  schools  abounding,  with- 
drew from  the  common  schools  the  children  of 
all  but  the  poorest  families.  The  wealthier  peo- 
ple patronized  the  tuition  schools;  the  poorest, 
perforce,  gotjwhiat  little  they  could  from  the  free 
town  schools-;-- whila  ietweeu—these  extremes 
pride  and  poverty  struggled  with  each  other, 
and  as  one  or  the  other  gained  the  ascendency 
the  children  alternated  between  the  two  institu- 
tions. The  scanty  measure  of  education  fur- 
nished by  the  town  schools  led  to  the  founding 
of  the  academies.  The  more  the  academies  flour- 
ished the  worse  became  the  town  schools. 

In  1838-'39  there  was  spent  for  instruction  in 
private  schools — not  incorporated — one  half  as 
much  money  as  was  spent  for  the  common 
schools;  and  the  scripture  was  fulfilled  which 
says,  "Where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your 


130    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

heart  be  also/'  People  will  never  willingly  and 
cheerfully  support  two  systems  of  schools. 
Whenever  the  private-school  system  in  any 
community  gets  on  its  side  the  social  and  polit- 
ical leaders^  it  will  grind  the  public  schools  to 
the  wall,  and  do  it  under  legal  and  constitutional 
sanctions. 

The  half  century  in  which  the  district  school 
and  the  academy  flourished  is  also  memorable  for 
the  change  in  public  sentiment  regarding  the 
education  of  girls.  In  the  earliest  days,  when 
Dorchester  set  up  its  town  school,  it  was  left 
to  the  discretion  of  the  elders  and  the  select- 
men whether  maids  , should  be  taught  with  the 
boys  or  not.*  In  the  exercise  of  this  discretion 
they  tacitly  or  otherwise  decided  against  coedu- 
cation, and  until  ihe  Revolution  girls  graduated 
from  the  dame  schools  and  early  entered  upon 
domestic  duties.  The  district  schools  in  the 
smaller  towns  opened  their  doors  to  boys  and 
girls  alike,  but  few  of  the  girls  advanced  beyond 
reading  and  writing. 

The  Revolutionary  period  started  new  cur- 
rents of  thinking  along  many  lines,  and  almost 
simultaneously  in  all  the  larger  towns  there 
arose  a  demand  for  ampler  opportunities  for  the 

*  History  of  Dorchester,  Boston,  1859,  p.  420. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE  ACADEMY.     131 

education  of  girls.  The  practical  form  which 
the  agitation  assumed  concerned  the  admission 
of  girls  to  the  master^s  school.  At  first  towns 
voted  decidedly  to  be  at  no  expense  for  educat- 
ing feirls.*  Slowly  the  conservative  party  made 
concessions.  The  boys  were  sent  home  an  hour 
earlier  in  the  forenoon  and  afternoon,  and  the 
girls  came  in ;  f  or  the  girls  came  an  hour  in  the 
morning,  before  the  boys,  and  on  Thursday  after- 
noon (the  boys'  holiday) ;  this  only  during  the 
summer  months,  so  tender  was  the  consideration 
for  what,  in  the  language  of  the  time,  was  called 
^'  the  female  health.'' 

Thus  the  more  ambitious  girls  worked  their 
way  a  little  into  arithmetic  and  geography  and 
grammar.  It  was  fifty  years  after  the  Revolution 
before  girls  acquired  equal  privileges  with  the 
boys  in  the  masters'  schools  of  the  large  towns. 
Meantime  fashion  had  made  some  demands, 
and  private  schools  were  set  up  to  add  some 
frippery  accomplishments^ — "  finishing  schools." 
They  taught  a  little  French,  a  little  embroidery, 
considerable  dancing,  and  many  elegant  manners. 
Families  of  means  sent  their  girls  from  the  coun- 


*  History  of  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary,  1837-1887,  p.  4. 
t  Chase's  History  of  Haverhill,  p.  456  (1792).    Brooks's  His- 
tory of  Medford,  pp.  281,  282  (1776  and  1794). 


132    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

try  to  Boston,  Salem,  and  Newburyport  to  be 
polished  for  market.* 

But  during  this  time,  while  the  voters  in  town 
and  district  meetings  were  wrestling  with  the 
question  whether  girls  should  be  taught  at  all, 
and  were  grudgingly  giving  them  a  few  crumbs 
from  the  boys'  table ;  while  the  more  ignorant 
were  derisively  asking  if  the  girls  expected  to 
carry  pork  to  market,  that  they  wanted  to  learn 
arithmetic ;  and  while  young  women  who  aspired 
to  be  social  leaders  were  trimming  the  rags  of 
their  ignorance  with  the  passementerie  of  Tur- 
veydrop  manners,  some  earnest  souls  had  awak- 
ened to  the  conviction  that  girls  might  be  more 
than  drudges  or  dolls. 

The  efforts  of  William  Woodbridge  in  Con- 
necticut, f  the  success  of  girls  in  the  early  acad- 
emies— Leicester,  Monson,  Lawrence,  and  Brad- 
ford—fostered the  idea.  The  writings  of  Miss 
Edgeworth  and  others  still  further  stimulated  it, 
and  within  ten  years,  beginning  with  1818,  there 
were  established  at  Byfield  (1818)  by  Rev.  Joseph 
Emerson,  at  Troy  (1821)  by  Emma  Willard,  at 
Hartford  (1822)   by  Catherine   Beecher,  and  at 

*  Rev.  William  Woodbridge,  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Education  for  September,  1830,  p.  421. 

t  American  Journal  of  Education,  1830,  p.  422 ;  Annals  of 
Education,  1831,  pp.  522-526. 


DISTRICT  SCHOOL  AND  THE   ACADEMY.     I33 

Andover  (1829)  through  the  liberality  of  Mrs. 
Sarah  Abbott,  schools  for  girls,  which  in  breadth 
of  English  scholarship  and  in  methods  of  instruc- 
tion surpassed  any  existing  institutions  of  learn- 
ing, not  excepting  the  colleges. 

Mr.  Emerson  was  the  first  to  introduce  the 
topical  method  of  study.  Miss  Willard  pushed 
her  girls  into  the  higher  mathematics,  and  at  her 
school,  in  1820,  occurred  the  first  public  examina- 
tion of  a  young  woman  in  geometry.  She  intro- 
duced greatly  improved  methods  of  teaching 
geography  and  history,  and  with  William  Wood- 
bridge  prepared  the  best  text-book  in  geography 
which  had  appeared. 

Some  of  these  schools  were  mothers  of  institu- 
tions. At  the  school  at  Byfield  were  Zilpah  P. 
Grant  and  Mary  Lyon.  Together  they  taught 
the  seminary  at  Derry,  N".  H.  (1824-1828),  and 
afterward  at  Ipswich,  Mass.  (1828-1835),  until 
Miss  Lyon  opened  her  own  school  at  South  Had- 
ley  (1837).  These  schools  were  pre-eminently  re- 
ligious institutions.  Not  only  was  there  system- 
atic Bible  study,  but  there  was  a  profoundly 
devotional  spirit  pervading  all  the  life,  ultimat- 
ing  in  consecrated  Christian  womanhood.  There 
was  an  exhilaration  due  to  the  very  novelty  of 
the  experience,  an  enthusiasm  as  of  pioneers,  a 
keenness  of  appreciation,  an  intellectual  fresh- 


134    MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

ness^  and  elasticity,  with  an  all-absorbing  moral 
and  religious  earnestness.  No  one  can  estimate 
tbe  influence  of  all  this  upon  !N'ew  England  life. 

It  is  to  these  early  seminaries  that  the  histo- 
rian must  look  to  account  for  the  great  moral  re- 
forms of  the  century  which  took  so  deep  a  hold 
on  New  England  life.  Not  only  did  Byfield  send 
out  Harriet  Newell  and  Mrs.  Judson  as  mission- 
aries to  the  heathen,  but  from  these  schools  came 
the  strongest  workers  against  intemperance  and 
slavery. 

When  Mary  Lyon  was  seeking  for  a  name  for 
her  new  school  at  South  Hadley,  Dr.  Hitchcock 
proposed  to  call  it  "The  Pangynaskean  Semi- 
nary.'' "  The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth 
life.''  Had  the  name  been  adopted,  the  school 
would  have  died  of  ridicule,  but  the  name  sug- 
gested was  grandly  appropriate ;  it  told  that,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  English-speak- 
ing race,  the  whole  woman  was  to  be  put  to 
school. 

As  the  voice  of  a  herald  was  the  voice  of  Ips- 
wich, and  Abbott,  and  Wheaton,  and  Mount  Hol- 
yoke,  crying'',  "...  Work  out  your  freedom. 
Girls,  knowledge  is  now  no  more  a  fountain 
sealed!" 


LECTURE  IV. 

HORACE  MANN  AND  THE  REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION. 

Historic  events  are  parts  of  historic  move- 
ments, and  historic  men  have  built  on  founda- 
tions laid  by  forgotten  workers.  This  was  pre- 
eminently trne  of  Horace  Mann  and  the  educa- 
tional reforms  usually  associated  with  his  name. 

The  first  part  of  this  century  is  marked  by  a 
general  quickening  of  interest  in  education  among 
enlightened  thinkers  and  the  friends  of  humanity 
the  world  over.  This  interest  resulted  in  an  up- 
ward movement  equally  widespread.  No  classes 
were  outside  its  influence,  and  in  the  grand  sweep 
of  its  beneficence,  and  in  some  of  its  many  phases, 
it  had  touched  and  blessed  all  lands  before  Horace 
Mann  had  begun  to  think  about  the  Massachu- 
setts schools. 

While  the  movement  may  be  -  regarded  as 
one — the  same  Zeitgeist  stirring  simultaneously 
many  minds  in  many  lands — it  had  two  distinct 
phases,  and  each  of  these  manifested  itself  in 
several  different  directions.    The  motive  under- 

135 


136    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

lying  one  of  these  movements  was  philanthropy, 
and  its  object  was  to  widen  the  sphere  of  school 
activities;  to  reach,  with  the  benefits  of  educa- 
tion, neglected  classes.  The  motive  underlying 
the  other  was  philosophy,  and  its  aim  was  to 
improve  existing  institutions  by  broadening  the 
courses  of  study  and  substituting  more  rational 
methods  of  instruction  and  discipline. 

A  rapid  survey  of  what  was  happening  out- 
side of  Massachusetts  during  the  first  third  of 
the  century  will  prepare  us  to  understand  what 
happened  in  Massachusetts  later. 

To  this  period  belongs  the  infant-school 
movement.  Started  in  1800  by  Robert  Owen* 
for  the  children  of  his  employees  at  Lanark,  fos- 
tered by  Lord  Brougham  and  other  philanthro- 
pists, developed  in  London  by  Samuel  Wilder- 
spin,  f  it  spread  to  all  the  centers  of  population 
the  world  over.  Infant-school  societies  were  ev- 
erywhere organized.  Purely  charitable  in  their 
purpose,  they  took  the  children  of  the  poor,  be- 
tween the  ages  of  eighteen  months  and  six  years, 
and  amid  comfortable  and  pleasant  surroundings 
furnished  them  with  such  elementary  training  as 
the  parents  were  too  poor ,  and  too  negligent  and 
too  ignorant  to  supply.     With  similar  purposes, 

*  Barnard's  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  xxvi,  p.  411. 

f  Ibid.,  vol.  xxviii,  p.  897. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     137 

and  anticipating  some  of  the  methods  of  the  kin- 
dergarten, the  schools  combined  amusement  with 
instruction  and  moral  with  intellectual  discipline. 
Joseph  Lancaster*  had  set  up  his  famous 
Monitorial  School  in  the  Borough  Road,  in 
Southwark,  and,  gathering  a  thousand  children, 
had  perfected  his  system  of  mutual  instruction.  - 
Filled  with  enthusiasm,  he  had  become  an  edu- 
cational evangelist;  had  traveled  through  the 
United  Kingdom,  lecturing  and  expounding  his 
new  system  (which  yet  was  not  wholly  new)  with 
such  success  that  monitorial  schools  became 
everywhere  the  rage.  Within  a  few  years  there 
were  fifty-seven  of  these  schools  in  London  alone, 
and  more  than  a  thousand  in  Ireland.  They 
were  in  Sweden,  in  Switzerland,  in  Russia,  in 
India  and  Africa ;  and  in  1825  Lancaster  was  in 
the  new  Republic  of  Colombia,  and  Simon  Boli- 
var, the  Liberator,  had  appropriated  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars  to  found  monitorial  schools. 

*  For  knowledge  of  Lancaster  and  his  system,  see  Improve- 
ments in  Education  as  it  respects  the  Industrious  Classes  of  the 
Community,  by  Joseph  Lancaster,  London,  1806.  The  Lancas- 
terian  System  of  Education  with  Improvements,  by  Joseph  Lan- 
caster, Baltimore,  1821.  Monitorial  Instruction:  An  Address 
at  the  Opening  of  the  New  York  High  School,  by  John  Gris- 
com,  New  York,  1825.  Epitome  of  some  of  the  Chief  Events 
and  Incidents  in  the  Life  of  Joseph  Lancaster,  written  by  Him- 
self, New  Haven,  1833.  Reports  of  the  British  and  Foreign 
School  Society,  1810-1826. 


138    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  system  had  many  claims  upon  public  in- 
terest and  favor.  By  using  the  older  and  more 
forward  children  to  instruct  the  younger,  the 
time  of  the  master  could  be  used  to  better  advan- 
tage, and  each  child  have  more  individual  atten- 
tion. There  was  hardly  a  limit  to  the  possible 
size  of  a  monitorial  school.  An  enthusiastic 
French  writer  says  of  it:  "It  is  a  masterpiece 
which  must  produce  a  revolution  in  popular  edu- 
cation. ...  It  may  be  styled  a  manufactory  of 
knowledge.  .  .  .  The  intellectual  faculties  of  man 
may  be  decupled.  An  invention  not  less  grand 
and  useful  than  many  others  which  dazzle  and 
astonish  us.'^ 

In  a  more  matter-of-fact  consideration,  we 
may  say  of  the  monitorial  schools  as  a  whole : 

1.  They  educated  large  numbers  of  children 
at  comparatively  small  expense. 

2.  They  taught  children  to  read  quicker  than 
the  ordinary  schools,  though  they  introduced  no 
new  order  of  steps  and  made  the  work  no  less 
mechanical. 

3.  They  introduced  into  early  instruction  the 
use  of  ruled  slates  and  blackboards. 

4.  They  introduced  the  use  of  wall  charts  for 
teaching  reading. 

5.  They  introduced  the  co-ordinate  teaching 
of  reading  and  writing. 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.    139 

6.  They  first  used  written  spelling  by  dicta- 
tion. 

7.  They  made  class  work  more  prominent  than 
individual  work,  and  laid  the  foundation  for 
modern  grading. 

8.  They  made  great  use  of  emulation  as  a 
motive — rewards  and  prizes. 

9.  They  discountenanced  the  use  of  the  rod, 
but  used  other  forms  of  punishment  not  less  ob- 
jectionable. 

Among  the  punishments  which  Lancaster 
himself  recommends  are  wooden  pillory,  wooden 
shackles,  tying  the  legs  together,  suspending 
from  the  ceiling  in  a  sack  or  basket,  labeling 
boys  for  offenses—"  Tell-tale  Tit,''  or  "  Bite-finger 
Baby "" — setting  a  girl  to  wash  the  face  of  an  un- 
ruly boy ;  and  he  commends  the  example  of  the 
school  dame  who,  wearied  with  the  trials  of  her 
calling,  was  about  to  retire  from  the  profession 
when  some  one  suggested  a  bowl  of  camomile 
tea  with  which  to  quiet  restless  children,  with 
the  result  that  "  the  school  continued  an  example 
of  order  and  usefulness.'' 

While  these  charitable  schemes  for  the  most 
elementary  education  were  flourishing,  an  impor- 
tant movement  was  in  progress  at  the  other  end 
of  the  line.     At  Glasgow  had  been  founded  a 

Mechanics'  Institute,  which  had  been  reproduced 
,  11 


140    MASSACHUSETTS  PTJBLTC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

in  all  the  great  manufacturing  centers.  The 
motto  of  these  societies  was  a  most  suggestive 
one:  ^^To  make  the  man  a  better  mechanic,  we 
must  make  the  mechanic  a  better  man.^^  So  it 
aimed,  by  lectures,  by  evening  classes,  by  libra- 
ries and  reading  rooms,  to  give  to  men  of  limited 
opportunities  the  benefit  of  a  scientific  education 
— to  fit  the  man  for  the  century. 

During  this  eventful  period  a  still  more  pro- 
found movement  was  in  progress  on  the  Conti- 
nent. Rousseau's  Emile,  after  being  condemned 
to  be  burned  by  the  Archbishop  and  Parliament 
of  Paris,  and  subjecting  its  author  to  banish- 
ment, was  bearing  fruit  in  the  work  of  Pestalozzi 
and  his  disciples.  Unlike  the  schemes  of  Wil- 
derspin  and  Lancaster,  which  magnified  devices 
' — devices  for  organization,  devices  for  instruction 
— the  Pestalozzians  were  expounding  and  ap- 
plying principles — principles  which  Bacon  had 
announced  two  hundred  years  before,  but  which 
had  found  no  reception  in  the  schools.  At  the 
same  time  Jacotot  was  putting  into  practice  in 
Louvain  his  methods  of  teaching  languages,  and 
Fellenberg  was  elaborating  his  complex  Manual 
Labor  School  at  Hofwyl.  The  air  was  full  of 
educational  novelties.  From  all  countries  phil- 
anthropic men  and  the  ambassadors  of  kings 
were  making  pilgrimages  to  Yverdun  and  Lou- 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.    141 

vain  and  Hofwyl.  Curious  travelers  turned 
aside  from  viewing  picturesque  ruins  and  gal- 
leries of  old  masters,  to  experience  a  new  sensa- 
tion in  seeing  children  at  school  and  happy. 
Verily  the  word  of  the  prophet  was  fulfilled,  *^A 
little  child  shall  lead  them.'^ 

The  stimulus  which  these  reforms  gav^  to 
public  thought  was  evidenced  in  the  educational 
literature  which  began  to  be  abundant.  All 
phases  of  education  were  discussed,  and  dis- 
cussed from  new  view-points  and  with  a  deeper 
insight  into  the  nature  to  be  educated — domestic 
education,  the  education  of  girls,  religious  edu- 
cation, the  education  of  the  defective  classes,  the 
blind  and  the  deaf^and  out  of  it  all  national  sys- 
tems were  evolving,  which  at  a  later  day  deter- 
mined the  fate  of  nations. 

The  influence  of  all  this  activity  was  felt  on 
this  side  the  Atlantic,  and  not  one  of  all  the 
schemes  of  the  revivalists  but  found  its  patrons 
and  its  imitators  here.  Infant-school  societies 
were  to  be  found  in  all  the  cities;  Lancaster 
traveled  through  the  United  States,  leaving 
everywhere  some  of  his  own  enthusiasm,  and  the 
monitorial  system  became  universally  popular. 
Not  only  was  it  adopted  for  primary  instruction, 
but  for  the  older  pupils  in  the  reading  and  writ- 
ing schools  of  the  cities ;  and,  following  the  lead 


142    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

of  New  York  city,  monitorial  high  schools  were 
established  in  many  places  with  the  more  ad- 
vanced studies  of  the  academies.* 

^  Joseph  Neef,  a  coadjutor  of  Pestalozzi,  opened 

a  Pestalozzian  school  in  Philadelphia,  and  pub- 
lished a  descriptive  book.f  In  the  same  city  a 
disciple  of  Jacotot  founded  an  institute  to  apply 
^  his  principles,  while  the  manual  labor  ideas  of 
Fellenberg  found  expression  in  some  half-dozen 
States.*  Still  following  the  lead  of  the  Old  World, 
-  the  famous  Franklin  Mechanics'  Institute  was 
founded  in  Philadelphia  (1824),  and  similar  asso- 
ciations began  their  beneficent  work  in  other 
cities;  educational  books  multiplied — reprints 
of  European  works,  and  many  by  native  au- 
thors. 

Coming  nearer  home,  we  find  that  Massachu- 
setts had  felt  the  universal  impulse,  and  we  turn 
now  to  see  by  what  means  and  to  what  extent  the 
fallow  ground  of  the  Bay  State  had  been  broken 
up  for  cultivation  by  Horace  Mann.  As  in  Eu- 
rope, so  here,  philanthropy  preceded  philosophy 

^,  in  producing  change,  multiplying  the  means  of 
education  much  more  rapidly  and  more  widely 

*  See  monthly  news  reports,  headed  Intelligence,  in  Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Education,  1836-1830. 

t  Sketch  of  a  Plan  and  Method  of  Education,  Philadelphia, 
1808. 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.     143 

than  its  methods  were  reformed.  From  this  mo- 
tive had  sprung  the  incorporated  academies,  and 
it  had  compelled  a  reluctant  and  ungracious  as- 
sent to  its  demands  for  the  better  education  of 
girls.  It  had  aroused  the  social  aristocracy  of 
Boston  by  its  demands  f or  ^^rimaryjjistructipn 
at  public_  expense^  and  a  little  later  to  a,  still 
higher  pitch  of  indignation  by  calling  for  a  free^ 
high  schooler  girls. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  long  the  higher  social 
circles  of  the  ^commercial  towns — Boston,  Salem, 
and  Newburyport— (-clung  to  the  old^  traditions, 
and  how  they  resistgOThe..eiicroachmairba,^^ 
leveling  spirit  whichjsxiuli  break  down  the  old 
social  barriers.  Thus  in  Newbury  port,  in  1790, 
when  it  was  proposed  to  open  primary  schools 
for  girls  at  public  expense,  the  school  committee 
of  clergymen,  doctors,  squires,  and  captains  rec- 
ommended that  all  girls  who  attended  these 
schools  should  be  considered  as  recipients  of  pub- 
lic charity.     This  the  town  rejected.  • 

In  Boston  the  primary-school  movement  met 
with  similar  treatment.  Under  the  rules,  no 
child  could  attend  the  reading  and  writing 
schools  under  seven  years  of  age,  nor  could  any 
attend  who  could  not  read.  Dame  schools  at  pri- 
vate expense  were  expected  to  provide  for  these 
earlier  years.     In  consequence  of  the  disasters  of 


/ 


144:    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  Revolution  and  of  the  War  of  1812,  and  the 
immigration  of  foreigners,  there  were  many  poor 
people  who  did  not  patronize  the  tuition  schools. 
Some  charity  schools  for  girls  were  opened,  but 
in  1817  it  was  found  that  there  were  several  him- 
dred  children  under  seven  who  did  not  attend 
school  and  could  not  read,  and  against  whom  the 
doors  of  the  public  schools  were  shut.* 

Public  attention  was  called  to  the  condition 
of  affairs.  A  town  meeting  was  held  in  Faneuil 
Jl^JIr  The  matter  was  referred  to  a  large  com- 
mittee, of  which  the  school  committee  was  a  part. 
This  committee  made  an  extended  report  to  the 
effect  that  two  or  three  hundred  illiterate  children 
was  nothing  to  be  troubled  about ;  it  was  a  won- 
der there  were  so  few ;  the  tuition  of  children  at 
dame  schools  was  not  a  heavy  burden  on  the 
parents,  and  if  it  should  be  found  so  in  special 
cases,  charity  schools  would  provide  relief.  "  It 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  free  schools  should  be 
furnished  with  so  many  instructors  and  be  con- 
sidered on  so  liberal  principles  as  to  embrace  the 
circle  of  a  polite  and  finished  education.  They 
have  reference  to  a  limited  degree  of  improve- 
ment.^' 

*  For  origin  of  primary  schools  in  Boston,  see  Wightman's 
Annals  of  the  Boston  Primary  School  Committee,  Boston,  1860, 
pp.  14-35. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     145 

So,  in  the  most  graceful  and  polished  lan- 
guage, and  referring  to  the  heavy  tax  already 
assessed  for  the  support  of  public  education,  the 
honorable  committee  report  that  it  is  not  expe- 
dient to  establish  primary  schools  at  public  ex- 
pense, nor  to  increase  the  number  of  schools. 
At  this  time  the  public  schools  were  instructing 
two  thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  pupils, 
while  at  private  schools  were  four  thousand  one 
hundred  and  thirty-two  pupils,  at  an  expense  of 
nearly  fifty  thousand  dollars,  nineteen  thousand 
dollars  of  which  was  for  children  under  seven 
years  of  age. 

Not  deterred  by  this  cool  rebuff,  the  same 
men  who  had  started  the  movement  continued  the 
agitation,  secured  a  formidable  petition,  and  in 
1818,  in  spite  of  the  eloquence  of  Harrison  Gray 
Otis  and  Peter  Thacher,  carried  the  town  in 
support  of  their  measure,  and  twenty  primary 
schools  were  opened  in  that  year. 

Following  close  upon  this  movement  was  the 
opening  of  the  English  High  School  for  boys  in  , 
1821 — the  first  in  the  country — a  similar  school 
for  girls  in  1825,  which  was  short-lived,  and  a^ 
Mechanics'  Institute  in  1827. 

During  this  period  the  monitorial  system  had 
been  widely  introduced  into  the  larger  towns. 
Pestalozzian  principles  and  methods  had  their 


146    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

earliest  exemplifications  in  the  monitorial  school 
of  William  B.  Fowle,  and  through  the  elemen- 
tary books  which  he  prepared  these  principles 
came  into  common  use  in  the  monitorial  schools 
of  other  places. 

The  publication  of  Warren  Colburn's  Intellec- 
tual Arithmetic,  in  1823,  was  an  efiicient  force  in 
raising  the  standard  of  instruction.  Previous  to 
this  all  arithmetic  work  had  been  unintelligent 
ciphering.  This  book  came  into  the  schools  as 
refreshing  as  a  northwest  wind,  and  as  stimulat- 
ing. It  was  eagerly  seized  upon  by  the  more 
intelligent  teachers.  Its  use  was  a  mark  of  an 
intelligent  teacher,  a  sign  of  life  from  the  dead. 
Embodying  the  principles  of  the  new  education, 
it  wrought  a  revolution  in  the  teaching  of  arith- 
metic, and  it  determined  the  character  of  all  sub- 
sequent text-books. 

All  these  movements,  though  having  in  them 
the  elements  of  progress,  were  comparatively 
local  and  limited  in  the  sphere  of  their  influence. 
A  few  public-spirited  men  and  women^:*^me 
teachers — had  come  out  into  the  light ;  but  the 
great  body  of  common  schools  remained  unaf- 
fected. The  majority  of  Massachusetts  citizens 
were  torpid  so  far  as  school  interests  were 
concerned,  or,  if  aroused  at  all,  awakened  only 
to    a    spasmodic    and     momentary    excitement 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     147 

over  the  building  of  a  new  chimney  to  the  dis- 
trict schoolhouse,  or  the  adding  of  a  half 
dollar  a  month  to  the  wages  of  the  school- 
mistress. 

Nor  was  this  lethargy  of  the  people  and  this 
decay  of  primitive  ardor  more  marked  in  New 
England  than  in  other  countries  where  the  spirit 
of  the  Reformation  had  early  set  up  school  sys- 
tems. Scotland,  in  1819,  awoke  to  the  fact  that 
the  parish  schools,  in  which  a  century  before  she 
had  led  the  world,  had  fallen  into  decay — had 
so  failed  to  maintain  the  standard  of  popular  in- 
telligence which  had  made  the  Scotch  leaders  of 
thought,  that  half  the  people  in  the  Highlands 
could  not  read.  In  Holland,  too,  the  primary 
schools  of  the  Reformation  had  become  what  the 
Highland  chief  called  ^^  cemeteries  of  eddica- 
tion  ^' !  The  free-school  system  of  Massachusetts, 
under  her  compulsory  laws,  had  kept  her  from 
sinking  to  the  level  of  the  parochial  systems  of 
her  Calvinistic  sisters.  ^y^ 

y^^o  James  G.  Carter,  of  Lancaster,*  belongs 
the  honor  of  first  attracting  attention  to  the  de-  - 
cadence  of  the  public  schools,  the  extent  of  it, 
the  cause  of  it,  and  the  remedy  for  it.    Within  a 
year  after  he  graduated  from  college  he  began 

*  Barnard's  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  v,  pp.  407-416. 


148    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

an  aggressive  campaign  in  favor  of  free  schools, 
which  he  continued  for  seventeen  years,  until 
his  triumph  was  complete  in  the  establishment 
of  normal  schools,  and  Horace  Mann  came  to  fol- 
low up  his  victory.  ■ 

His  first  efforts  were  through  the  press.  He 
described  the  condition  of  the  public  schools; 
he  showed  how  they  had  sunk  in  the  char- 
acter of  their  instruction  and  instructors;  with 
convincing  logic  he  showed  how  the  academies 
and  private  schools  were  largely  responsible 
for  this  decline;  in  eloquent  terms  he  painted 
the  wisdom  and  self-denial  of  the  founders  of 
the  State,  and  contrasted  them  with  the  degen- 
eracy of  their  children;  and  with  the  ardor  of 
his  age,  and  a  sagacity  and  insight  beyond  his 
years,  he  argued  for  inductive  teaching  in  all 
the  schools,  and  proved  conclusively  that  there 
could  be  no  such  teaching  until  competent 
teachers  could  be  provided.  Then,  rising  to- 
the  height  of  his  subject,  he  outlined  a  plan' 
for  a  seminary  for  teachers,*  of  which  Prof. 
Bryce  said,  in  1828,  it  was  "the  first  regular 
publication  on  the  subject  of  the  professional 
education  of  teachers  which  he  had  heard  of.'^ 


*  This  essay  is  given  in  full  in  Barnard's  Normal  Schools 
and  Other  Institutions,  pp.  75-83. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.    149 

These  papers  were  widely  circulated  and  favor- 
ably received.  They  were  reviewed  by  Theophi- 
lus  Parsons  in  the  Literary  Gazette,  and  by 
Prof.  Ticknor  in  the  North  American  Review, 
and  bore  almost  immediate  fruit  in  the  legis- 
lation of  1824*  and  1826.t, 

This  legislation  is  of  commanding  importance 
in  Massachusetts  school  history.  It  was  the  first 
attempt  to  remedy  the  evils  of  the  district  sys- 
tem— not  by  prevention,  but  by  a  check.  Every 
town  was  required  to  choose  annually  a  school 
committee,  who  should  have  the  general  charge 
and  superintendence  of  all  the  town  schools. 
They  could  determine  the  text-books  to  be  used, 
and  no  teacher  could  be  employed  without  being 
first  examined  and  certified  by  them. 

Here  let  us  pause  and  review  the  history  of 
school  supervision  in  Massachusetts  for  the  first 
two  hundred  years. 
^1 — During  the  colonial  and  provincial  period  *- 
\here  was  no  statutory  provision  for  the  super- 
vision of  schools.  The  selection  of  teachers  and 
the  regulation  of  the  schools  were  vested  in  the 
town  as  a  corporation,  and  not  in  any  particular 
officer  of  it.    The  choice  of  teachers  was  guarded 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  February  18,  1824. 
t  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  March  4, 1826. 


150    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

by  the  requiremeDt  that  their  scholarship  and 
character  must  be  attested  by  the  ministers.  In 
practice  there  was  no  uniformity.  Often  the 
town  in  its  meeting  chose  the  master,  fixed  his 
salary,  and  regulated  the  terms  of  admission. 
More  often  committees  were  chosen  to  perform 
these  functions,  as  well  as  to  provide  and  repair 
schoolhouses  and  to  lay  out  the  districts.  These 
committees  were  chosen  for  specified  executive 
functions,  and  they  had  no  term  of  service. 
Most  frequently  all  these  functions  were  per- 
formed by  the  selectmen,  as  the  general  execu- 
tive officers  of  the  town.  But  in  no  town  was 
either  of  the  three  modes  used  uniformly  or  con- 
tinuously. 

The  law  of  1789  first  required  supervision, 
though  it  left  all  executive  functions  still  un- 
lodged.  The  ministers  of  the  gospel  and  the 
selectmen,  or  a  committee  specially  chosen  for 
the  purpose,  were  required  to  visit  and  inspect 
the  schools  once  in  every  six  months  at  least,  to 
inquire  into  the  regulation  and  discipline,  and 
the  proficiency  of  the  scholars  therein.  The  sug- 
gestion of  a  special  committee  was  quickly  acted 
on,  and  in  the  next  twenty  years  a  large  number 
of  towns  chose  such  a  committee,  the  ministers 
and  selectmen  often  being  ex-officiis  members. 
There  are  in  existence  several  sets  of  school-corn- 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     151 

mittee  records  beginning  before  1800 — one  begin- 
ning in  1712.* 

The  visitation  required  by  law  was  a  formal 
and  solemii  affair.  The  ministers,  the  selectmen, 
and  the  committee,  sometimes  numbering  more 
than  twenty — the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the 
town — went  in  stately  procession  at  the  appoint- 
ed time  to  inspect  the  schools.  They  heard  the 
classes  read — Primer,  Psalter,  Testament,  Bible, 
Preceptor — examined  the  writing  and  the  cipher- 
ing books,  listened  to  recitations  in  Latin,  aired 
their  own  erudition — in  the  customary  school- 
committee  way — and  took  their  departure,  leav- 
ing on  the  records  their  testimony  to  the  good 
behavior  and  proficiency  of  the  scholars  and  the 
fidelity  of  the  master.  The  quaint  record  of  one 
such  visitation  to  the  school  of  old  Nicholas  Pike 
closes  by  saying,  "The  school  may  be  said  to 
flourish  like  the  palm  tree.'^ 

Meanwhile  the  support  of  the  schools  was 
falling  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  the  dis- 
tricts, and  the  executive  functions  came  to  be 
performed  by  the  district  committees,  with  the^ 
results  which  we  have  learned  to  deplore.  The 
law  of  1826,  therefore,  introduced  no  new  idea 


*  Salem,  1712;  Newburyport,  1790 ;  Boston,  1792 ;  Hingham, 
1794. 


152    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

into  the  school  history  of  the  State ;  it  made  uni- 
versal and  compulsory  what  had  already  become 
familiar  to  many  communities.  But  it  did  more 
than  this :  it  elevated  the  school  interests  by  dif- 
ferentiating them,  specializing  these  functions,  as 
the  care  of  the  roads,  of  the  poor,  of  taxing,  had 
long  before  been  specialized. 

The  law  of  1789  was  a  long  step  forward,  by 
making  it  somebody^s  business  to  know  what  the 
schools  "^fere  doing.  This  law  was  a  longer  step 
forward,  by  making  the  somebody  a  special 
body,  and  giving  to  it  new  and  more  extended 
powers.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  law  met 
with  vigorous  opposition.  Petitions  came  to  the 
next  Legislature  urging  its  repeal,  but  it  was 
not  repealed. 

So  arrogant  had  the  little  districts  become,  so 
jealous  of  their  imagined  rights,  though  they 
had  had  a  corporate  existence  but  thirty-seven 
years,  that  they  complained  of  the  new  law  a^*- 
being  arbitrary  and  oppressive,  because  it  gave 
back  to  the  town  a  part  of  the  powers  which  had 
always  belonged  to  it,  but  which  the  districts 
had  usurped. 

The  law  was  not  repealed,  but  a  sop  was 
thrown  to  the  districts,  which  in  practice  went 
far  to  neutralize  all  the  good  e:pects  of  the  law. 
This  was  the  authority  givqn  to  the  prudential 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     I53 

committee  to  select  the  teacher.*  The  power  had 
been  long  exercised;  now  it  was  legally  con- 
ferred. The  town  committees  neglected  their  re- 
strictive duties,  so  that  in  many  towns  the  new 
legislation  was  practically  inoperative. 

One  other  feature  of  the  legislation  of  1827 
should  be  noticed  in  passing.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  State  is  the  entire  support 
of  the  schools  by  taxation  made  compulsory. 
From  1647  such  support  had  been  voluntary,  f 
For  many  years  it  had  been  universal. 

From  the  beginning  legislation  had  recog- 
nized the  principle  so  aptly  stated  by  Mr.  Carter, 
that  all  the  property  of  the  town  was  liable  for 
the  education  of  all  the  children  of  the  town. 
Now,  after  one  hundred  and  eighty  years,  the 
principle  is  enacted  into  a  law.  So  slowly  are 
institutions  evolved  and  perfected  in  a  govern- 
ment by  the  people. 

sJMr.  Carter's  plans  for  school  improvement 
included  two  means  as  of  primary  importance :  a 
school  fund,  and  a  seminary  for  the  training  of 
teachers.  The  efforts  of  the  friends  of  reform  to 
secure  these  two  ends  were  unremitting.     The 

*  Laws  of  1827. 

f  In  the  Province  Law  of  1692  the  maintenance  and  support 
of  schools  was  included  in  the  town  charges,  for  which  taxes 
might  be  levied. 


\ 


154    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

measures  were  forced  upon  the  attention  and 
consideration  of  the  Legislature  every  year  from 
1827,  until  opposition  and  reluctance  yielded  to 
importunity,  and  both  were  secured. 
/un  1834  *  a  bill  was  reported  and  enacted  es- 
tablishing a  school  fund.  The  fund  was  to  con- 
sist of  all  money  in  the  treasury  derived  from 
the  sale  of  lands  in  the  State  of  Maine,  and  from 
the  claims  of  the  State  on  the  United  States  for 
military  services,  and  half  of  all  money  there- 
after to  be  received  from  the  sale  of  Maine  lands, 
the  fund  not  to  exceed  a  million  dollars.  Profit- 
ing by  the  example  of  Connecticut  and  New 
York,  the  distribution  of  the  money  among  the 
towns  was  upon  two  conditions :  the  towns  must 
raise  by  taxation  at  least  one  dollar  for  each 
person  of  school  age — four  to  sixteen  years — and 
must  make  to  the  State  the  statistical  returns  re- 
quired by  law.  The  fund  was  thus  made  a  means 
not  only  of  aiding  the  towns,  but  also  of  securing 
that  information  concerning  the  state  of  edu- 
cation which  was  necessary  to  intelligent  legis- 
lation. 

^jt^Three  years  later  Mr.  Carter's  enthusiasm  and 
energy  achieved  another  signal  triumph,  and  the 
Commonwealth  took  the  second  step  in  its  educa- 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  March  31,  1834. 


nORACE   MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.     I55 

tional  renaissance.  In  his  address  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  legislative  session  in  1837,  Governor 
Edward  Everett  recommended  the  creation  by 
law  of  a  Board  .of  Education,  as  an  efficient  means 
of  furthering  the  educational  interests  of  the 
State.  This  recommendation  was  indorsed  by  a 
convention  of  the  friends  of  education  in  Bristol 
County,  in  a  memorial  to  the  Legislature.  The 
Committee  on  Education,  of  which  Josiali  Quincy, 
Jr.,  was  the  Senate  chairman,  and  Mr.  Carter 
House  chairman,  reported  a  bill  in  accordance 
with  the  Governor's,  recommendation.  This  was 
defeated  in  the  House  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred 
and  thirteen  to  sixty-one. 

Cast  down  but  not  destroyed,  Mr.  Carter's 
signal  ability  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  By 
parliamentary  skill  he  induced  the  House  to  go 
into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  and  discuss  the 
measure.  The  committee  reported  favorably ; 
the  House  adopted  the  report,  and  the  bill  passed 
to  be  engrossed.*  A  board  of  eight  members  was 
created,  to  be  appointed  by  the  Governor  and 
Council,  one  member  to  retire  annually;  the 
Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor  to  be  mem- 
bers ex  officiis. 

This  measure,  which  so  narrowly  escaped  de- 


*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  April  20,  1837. 
12 


156    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

"^feat,  was  very  mild  and  inoffensive.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  the  State  intended  to  lay  no  violent 
hands  upon  the  people's  schools.  The  new  board 
had  some  simple  duties,  but  no  power.  It  was  to 
prepare  an  abstract  of  tlje  school  returns ;  it  was 
to  make  an  annual  report  to  the  Legislature  of 
the  condition  and  efficiency  of  the  common-school 
system,  and  to  suggest  means  of  improving  it — 
only  this  and  nothing  more  could  the  board  do. 
Its  mission  was  to  influence  by  enlightening,  not 
to  control  by  authority. 

>^  That  this  influence  might  be  most  widespread 
and  potent,  the  board  was  authorized  to  appoint 
a  secretary,  who  should,  in  the  words  of  the  act, 
'^  collect  information  of  the  actual  condition  and 
efficiency  of  the  common  schools  and  other  means 
of  popular  education,  and  diffuse  as  widely  as 
possible  throughout  every  part  of  the  Common- 
wealth information  of  the  most  approved  and 
successful  methods  of  arranging  the  studies  and 
conducting  the  education  of  the  young,  to  the 
end  that  all  children  in  this  Commonwealth  who 
depend  upon  common  schools  for  instruction 
may  have  the  best  education  which  those  schools 
can  be  made  to  impart.'^ 

I  SL^The  board  was  to  enlighten  the  Legislature ; 
its  secretary  was  to  enlighten  the  people.  Inas- 
much as  the  Legislature  came  from  the  people,  it 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     I57 

is  evident  that  whatever  efficiency  there  was  to 
be  in  the  new  measure,  would  be  the  personal 
efficiency  of  the  secretary;  the  outcome  of  the 
new  departure,  in  direction  and  distance,  would 
be  determined  by  his  wisdom,  zeal,  and  pop- 
ularity. The  possibility  of  progress  was  coex- 
tensive with  the  power  of  the  secretary  to  make 
himself  solid  with  the  people. 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  board,  June  29, 
1837,  Horace  Mann  was  chosen  secretary.  The 
choice  was  a  surprise  and  a  disappointment  to 
many  of  those  who  had  been  most  active  in  pro- 
Linoting  the  new  movement.  They  wanted  James 
G.  Carter.  It  was  his  voice  and  pen  which  for 
seventeen  years  had  been  kindling  public  senti- 
ment and  guiding  it  toward  this  consummation. 
It  was  his  portrayal  of  the  decadence  of  the  com- 
mon schools,  his  keen-eyed  discernment  of  the 
influence  of  the  academies,  his  eloquent  appeals 
to  the  sacrifices  of  the  fathers,  his  sagacious  and 
far-reaching  plans  for  improvement,  his  skill'  in 
legislation,  which  had  set  the  reformation  on  its 
feet.  He  had  been  the  acknowledged  leader  out 
of  the  wilderness  into  sight  of  the  promised  land. 
It  seemed  hard  that  he  should  not  go  over  and 
possess  it. 

If  Mr.  Mann's  qualifications  for  the  position 
were  not  peculiar  nor  pre-eminent,  they  were 


158    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

neither  few  nor  inferior.     Supreme  among  them 

T'    was  his  moral  earnestness.     In  considering  any 

/  -J^iiiestion,  his    mind   instinctively  turned   to   its 

'  moral  aspects;  all  subjects  for  him  were  shad- 

^     owed  by  the  eternities.     In  this  he  was  a  Puritan 

of  the  Puritans.    The  Puritan  spirit  was  manifest 

also  in  his  readiness  to  take  the  field  in  defense 

of  principles,  or  in  support  of  measures  which  he 

had  espoused.     He  was  born  to  be  a  champion. 

y  Fearless  of  consequences  to  himself,  he  had  the 

stuff  that  martyrs  are  made  of. 

He  was  broadly  humanitarian  in  his  sym- 
pathies. He  had  already  shown  this  in  carrying 
through  the  Legislature,  almost  single-handed, 
the  bill  to  establish  the  first  asylum  and  hospital 
for  the  insane  in  Massachusetts.  He  was  one  of 
the  firmest  friends  and  strongest  helpers  of  Dr. 
Samuel  G.  Howe  in  carrying  on  his  work  among 
the  blind,  and  he  was  in  the  van  in  the  fight  with 
slavery  and  intemperance. 

On  the  intellectual  side,  his  legal  training  had 
developed  certain  natural  characteristics;  his 
mind  was  at  once  broad  and  keenly  logical.  As 
a  result  of  this,  no  subjects  presented  themselves 
to  him  alone  and  unrelated ;  they  readily  referred 
themselves  to  categories  and  came  under  general 
principles.  From  the  combination  of  these  two 
qualities — moral  and  intellectual — it  came  about 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.     159 

that,  whatever  cause  he  espoused,  he  lifted  the 
discussion  at  once  to  the  most  elevated  plane, 
giving  to  it  a  breadth  and  a  dignity  which  ap-  _ 
pealed  to  the  thoughtful  men  and  women  of  the  "^ 
time.     This  was  the  secret  of  his  power  and  of  - 
his    success.      His  imagination  was  active  and    — 
strong,  his  idealizing  power  great ;  yet  there  was    '^ 
a  practical  element  in  his  make-up  which  kept 
him  from  Quixotic  undertakings — he  never  mis- 
took sheep  for  soldiers,  nor  tilted  against  wind- 
mills. 

His  writings  were  characterized  by  a  wealth 
of  language,  aptness  and  variety  of  illustration, 
and  an  elaboration  of  argument  sometimes  bor- 
dering close  on  prolixity  and  tediousness ;  but  in 
controversy  he  could  be  keen,  witty,  vigorous, 
overwhelming.  In  public  speech  his  arguments 
were  convincing  and  his  eloquence  inspiring. 

Besides  these  qualities  of  character,  his  pre- 
vious public  life  was  an  added  qualification  for 
his  new  office.     He  had  been  for  ten  years  in  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature,  and  during  the  last    '^ 
two  of  these  he  had  been  President  of  the  Senate.  - 
This  gave  him  a  wide  acquaintance  among  lead- 
ing men  in  all  parts  of  the  State.     He  had  been  * 
one   of  a  commission  to  prepare    the    Revised 
Statutes  of  1836.     All  this  gave  him  a  prestige 
which  a  mere  schoolman  could  not  have  had.    In 


160    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

politics  he  was  a  "Whig,  in  religions  faith  a  Uni- 
tarian. These  were  elements  both  of  strength 
and  of  weakness  in  his  new  position,  as  will  ap- 
pear later. 

With  snch  endowments,  natural  and  acquired, 
Mr.  Mann  accepted  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Education,  June  30,  1837,  and  on  the 
evening  of  that  day  he  wrote  in  his  journal,* 
"  Henceforth,  so  long  as  I  hold  this  office,  I  dedi- 
cate myself  to  the  supremest  welfare  of  mankind 
upon  earth,^'  and  for  twelve  years  he  held  him- 
self to  the  full  level  of  that  vow. 

His  friends  and  the  public  were  surprised  that 
he  should  consent  to  leave  his  profession,  which 
might  be  lucrative,  and  to  withdraw  from  polit- 
ical life,  where  preferment  was  certain,  for  an 
office  whose  salary  was  meager  and  whose  title 
conveyed  the  idea  of  service,  but  not  of  honor. 
Concerning  the  title  he  wrote :  "  If  the  title  is 
not  sufficiently  honorable  now,  then  it  is  clearly 
left  for  me  to  elevate  it.  I  had  rather  be  creditor 
than  debtor  to  the  title." 

The  twofold  work  assigned  by  law  to  the 
Board  of  Education  was  to  collect  and  to  diffuse 
information.  The  board  set  itself,  through  its 
secretary,  immediately  to  these  tasks.     The  school 

*  Life  of  Horace  Mann,  by  his  Wife,  p.  80. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.    161 

law  of  1826  had  for  the  first  time  called  for  re- 
turns from  the  towns  concerning  school  attend- 
ance and  expenditures,  these  returns  to  be  sent 
to  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  by  him  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  the  Legislature.  But  the  returns  had 
been  incomplete,  and  little  use  had  been  made  of 
them.  By  the  new  law  these  returns  were  to  be 
received  and  abstracts  made  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Board  of  Education.  In  Mr.  Mann's  hands 
they  became  powerful  instruments  in  educating 
the  public.  Besides  these  regular  returns,  spe- 
cial circulars  of  inquiry  were  sent  concerning  the 
condition  of  schoolhouses,  the  length  of  the 
school  period,  the  selection,  compensation,  and 
service  of  school  committees,  books,  apparatus, 
and  the  quality  of  the  teaching  force. 

These  inquiries  met  with  a  very  general  re- 
sponse, and  the  answers  gave  to  Mr.  Mann  a  suf- 
ficiently accurate  idea  of  the  educational  condi- 
tion of  the  State.  These  means  he  supplemented 
by  tours  of  observation  and  by  extensive  corre-  • 
spondence.  Whatever  Mr.  Mann  at  the  time  of 
his  appointment  lacked  of  information,  within  a 
few  months  he  knew  more  than  any  one  else  had 
ever  known  about  the  Massachusetts  schools. 

For  diffusing  this  information  and  for  arous- 
ing and  directing  public  opinion,  three  means 
were  used:  first,  conventions  and   other  public 


162    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

'^      meetings ;  second,  the  annual  reports  which  the 
law  called  for ;   and,  third,  the  Common  School 

^  Journal,  a  monthly  periodical  which  Mr.  Mann 
established  and  conducted  for  ten  years.  By 
these  three  means  he  aimed  to  reach  and  influ- 
^  ence  all  the  parties  on  whom  the  success  of  the 
schools  depended — the  public,  the  school  commit- 
tee, and  the  teachers. 

In  annual  conventions  held  in  each  county,  to 
which  teachers,  committees,  and  all  friends  of 
education  were  invited,  and  to  which  the  towns 
were  requested  to  send  special  delegates,  Mr. 
Mann  delivered  an  address  in  which  he  discussed 
in  a  broad  and  general  way  great  educational 
topics,  treating  them  with  that  wealth  and  felici- 
ty of  illustration,  that  elaboration  of  argument 
and  that  lofty  eloquence  which  characterized  his 
treatment  of  all  great  themes. 

His  first  lecture  was  entitled  The  Means  and 
Objects  of  Common-School  Education,  and  it 
struck  the  keynote  of  all  his  subsequent  labors. 
While  no  man  had  a  higher  appreciation  of  the 
value  and  need  of  the  higher  education,  nor  ex- 
hibited in  his  own  work  more  of  its  fruits,  yet 

^    /his  accepted  mission  was  to  be  the  apostle  of  the 

—  common  schools.  In  an  age  of  invention,  he  de- 
clared, "The  common  school  is  the  greatest  in- 
vention of  man,"  and  he  sought  all  the  means  in 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     163 

his  power,  on  the  one  hand,  to  increase  its  effi- 
ciency, and,  on  the  other,  to  win  back  to  it  pub- 
lic confidence  and  pride. 

To  one  familiar  with  the  course  of  modern  ed- 
ucational history,  who  knows  by  what  short  and 
easy  methods  the  arbitrary  governments  of  the 
Old  World  in  the  early  part  of  this  century  re- 
formed their  systems  of  elementary  education, 
this  Massachusetts  method  by  conventions  is 
most  significant.  The  sovereign  people  can  not 
be  driven ;  they  can  only  be  coaxed  or  persuaded,  y 
Give  light  enough  and  time  enough,  and  things 
will  come  out  right.  This  distinctive  feature  of 
our  popular  government  has  never  been  more 
clearly  nor  more  eloquently  exhibited  than  by 
Mr.  Mann  himself :  * 

''  The  education  of  the  whole  people,  in  a  re- 
publican   government,    can    never    be    attained 
without  the  consent  of  the  whole  people.     Com- 
pulsion, even  if  it  were  desirable,  is  not  an  avail- 
able instrument.     Enlightenment,  not  coercion, 
is  our  resource.     The  nature  of  education  must  ^ 
be  explained.     The  whole  mass  of  mind  must  be  ^ 
instructed  in  regard  to  its  comprehension  and  en-   "* 
during  interests.     We  can  not  drive  our  people  _ 


*  Lectures  and  Reports  on  Education,  edition  of  Lee  &  Shep- 
ard,  Boston,  1872,  p.  286. 


^, 


164    MASSxVCHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 


up  a  dark  avenue^  even  though  it  be  the  right 
one ;  but  we  must  hang  the  starry  lights  of  knowl- 
edge about  it^  and  show  them  not  only  the  direct- 
ness of  its  course  to  the  goal  of  prosperity  and 
honor^  but  the  beauty  of  the  way  that  leads  to  it. 

"  In  some  districts  there  will  be  but  a  single 
man  or  woman,  in  some  towns  scarcely  half  a 
dozen  men  or  women,  who  have  espoused  this 
noble  enterprise.  But  whether  there  be  half  a 
dozen  or  but  one,  they  must  be  like  the  little 
leaven  which  a  woman  took  and  hid  in  three 
measures  of  meal.  Let  the  intelligent  visit  the 
ignorant  day  by  day,  as  the  oculist  visits  the 
blind  man  and  detaches  the  scales  from  his  eyes, 
until  the  living  sense  leaps  to  the  living  light. 

"  Let  the  zealous  seek  contact  and  communion 
with  those  who  are  frozen  up  in  indifference,  and 
thaw  off  the  icebergs  wherein  they  lie  imbedded. 
Let  the  love  of  beautiful  childhood,  the  love  of 
country,  the  dictates  of  reason,  the  admonitions 
of  conscience,  the  sense  of  religious  responsibil- 
ity be  plied,  in  mingled  tenderness  and  earnest- 
ness, until  the  obdurate  and  dark  mass  of  avarice, 
ignorance,  and  prejudice  shall  be  dissipated  by 
their  blended  light  and  heat.^^ 

The  response  of  the  people  to  the  efforts  of 
the  board  in  these  conventions  varied  with  the 
locality  and  circumstances,  though  the  meetings 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.     165 

were  on  the  whole  fairly  well  attended,  and  con- 
siderable interest  was  manifested,  but  many  of 
them  sorely  tried  the  soul  of  the  ardent  secretary. 

While  Mr.  Mann  in  his  annual  convention 
lectures  treated  educational  subjects  in  a  more 
general  and  discursive  way,  in  less  formal  meet- 
ings he  treated  of  specific  evils  and  pointed  out 
the  remedies.  This  he  did,  too,  through  the  me- 
dium of  his  annual  reports,  which  stand  to-day 
unexcelled  as  educational  documents,  for  the 
range  of  subjects — general  and  special,  for  the 
treatment — so  broad,  so  philosophical,  so  wise, 
and  so  practical,  that,  as  we  read  them  in  the 
light  of  a  world  full  of  new  educational  literature, 
we  wonder  how  a  lawyer  came  to  know  so  much 
of  the  theory  and  practice  of  education. 

In  his  reports  the  secretary  dealt  more  directly  — 
with  facts,  and  used  the  returns  from  the  towns 
as  a  basis  for  argument  and   appeal.     The  fact 
which  overtopped  all  others  in  significance,  and 
which  was  a  cause  of  justifiable  alarm,  was  the 
nonattendance  of  children  at  schools  of  any  kind.^ 
It  appeared  from  the  returns  that  more  than 
forty-two  thousand  children  did  not  attend  school  ^ 
at  all,  or  attended  so  little  as  not  to  be  counted, 
while  those  who  were  counted  attended  on  the 
average  but  seventeen  weeks  in  the  year.    The  ^ 
money  which  should  have  been  used  to  secure  a 


166     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

J  full  measure  of  schooling  to  all  the  children  had 
•^  been  diverted  to  the  use  of  the  few  to  the  neglect 
-"  of  the  many.  The  people  were  paying  seven 
tenths  as  much  money  to  educate  one  sixth  of 
the  children  in  private  schools  as  they  were  rais- 
ing by  tax  to  educate  the  other  five  sixths  in 
public  schools. 

With  this  fact  and  this  peril  before  them,  Mr. 
^  Mann  appealed  to  the  people  as  patriots,  in  a 
convention  lecture,*  on  the  necessity  of  educa- 
tion in  a  republican  government.  In  his  Fifth 
Report  he  appealed  to  them  as  practical  business 
men,  by  showing  the  advantages  of  education 
over  ignorance  in  promoting  the  industrial  wel- 
fare of  a  community;  and  in  his  Eleventh  Re- 
port he  appealed  to  them  as  Christians,  by  show- 
ing the  common  schools  to  be  the  most  effective 
instrument  to  deliver  the  people  from  vice  and 
crime. 

Not  only  were  the  common  schools  poorly 
^supported  and  scantily  attended,  but  the  school- 
houses  were  a  menace  to  the  health  of  the  chil- 
dren and  a  disgrace  to  the  communities  which 
owned  them.  In  his  first  year  of  service  Mr. 
Mann  prepared  a  si^ecial  report  on  schoolhouses, 
containing  plans   and   detailed    suggestions  for 

*  Lectures  and  Reports,  p.  143. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     167 

proper  sites,  size,  arrangements,  furniture,  heat- 
ing, lighting,  and  ventilating. 

The  third  count  in  the  indictment  was  the  ab- 
sence of  any  adequate  supervision.  The  town 
committees,  who  were  to  have  the  general  charge 
and  superintendence  of  the  schools,  thereby 
averting  the  evils  of  the  district  system,  in  many 
of  the  towns  had  no  pay  for  their  services  and 
rendered  no  service.  In  a  town  of  forty  districts 
the  committee  had  not  examined  a  teacher  nor 
visited  a  school  for  eight  successive  years ;  and 
the  people  loved  to  have  it  so.  Mr.  Mann  urged 
the  people  to  use  greater  care  in  the  selection  of 
committees,  and  to  pay  them  adequately ;  and  he 
instructed  the  committees  in  their  duties  in  vis- 
itation, in  examination  of  teachers,  and  in  selec- 
tion of  text-books. 

While  working  thus  with  the  people,  he  was 
working  with  no  less  assiduity  and  skill  to  im- 
prove the  internal  economy  of  the  schools,  both  - 
in  matter  and  method,  both  in  work  and  in  spirit. 
His  Second  Report  is  a  most  interesting  and  in- 
structive treatise  upon  the  teaching  of  reading, 
including  a  sweeping  and  just  arraignment  of 
existing  school  readers,  and  suggestions  for  read- 
ing matter  better  adapted  to  be  an  instrument  of 
instruction  in  the  art  of  reading  and  a  means  of 
true  literary  culture.     He  urged  the  advantages 


168    MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

--  of  teaching  words  before  letters^  of  written  rather 
than  oral  spelling.  He  advocated  everywhere 
""  objective  methods  of  instruction ;  the  teaching 
-  of  ideas  before  words ;  the  use  of  illustrative  ap- 
paratus and  experiments.  He  dwelt  at  length 
upon  school  motives  and  government,  and  urged 
the  use  of  moral  measures  in  place  of  the  indis- 
criminate and  universal  use  and  abuse  of  cor- 
poral punishment.  He  endeavored  to  broaden 
the  conception  of  education,  and  brought  more 
directly  before  the  people  than  any  one  had  done 
before  the  need  of  physical  and  moral  as  well  as 
intellectual  training. 

After  accepting  the  office  of  secretary,  he  had 
read  and  absorbed  the  treatise  of  the  Edgeworths 
dealing  with  education  on  the  practical  side,  and 
that  of  George  Combe,  which  was  theoretical. 
So  he  presented  to  the  people  and  secured  a  hear- 
ing for  all  the  characteristic  features  of  what  has 
come  to  be  known  as  the  New  Education — its 
spirit  and  its  methods. 

The  crowning  work  of  this  new  era  was  the 
establishment  of  the  normal  schools.  Toward 
this  consummation  many  men  and  many  influ- 
ences contributed.  The  battle  had  been  fought 
and  nearly  won  before  Mr.  Mann  became  an  edu- 
cational leader.  Other  men  labored,  and  he  en- 
tered into  their  labors. 


HORACE   MANX—REVIVAL  OP  EDUCATION.     169 

The  idea  of  educating  teachers  for  their  work  - 
had  been  in  the  minds  of  the  founders  of  the  — 
early  schools   for   girls.     William   Woodbridge  - 
had  aimed  especially  at  this,  and  from  Troy  and 
Ipswich  and  Mount  Holyoke  there  had  gone  out    "^ 
hundreds  of  young  women  into  the  little  red  — 
schoolhouses  among  the  hills  and  valleys  of  New 
England.     But  in  all  these  there  was  no  especial 
recognition  of  teaching  as  a  profession,  nor  of       ' 
such  special  preparation  for  it  as  was  afforded  by 
the  theological  schools  to  young  men  fitting  for 
the  ministry. 

But  all  the  leaders  of  educational  reform  in 
this  and  other  States  had  included  in  their  plans, 
as  the  foundation  of  all  the  others,  a  seminary 
for  the  special  training  of  teachers.     As  early  as 
1827  Mr.  Carter  came  within  a  single  vote  of  se-    — 
curing  an  appropriation  to  aid  in  founding  such  *" 
an  institution.     Failing  in  this,  he  opened  a  pri- 
vate school  for  the  purpose,  and  in  1830  a  depart — 
ment  was  opened  at  the   Phillips  Academy  at  — 
Andover,  under  the  charge  of  Rev.  Samuel  R. 
Hall,  who  had  done  similar  work  in  Concord,  Vt. 
.    Much  of  the  impulse  to  this  movement,  and   y 
that  which  finally  carried  it  to  success,  was  re- 
ceived from  Europe.     The  reports  made  by  M. 
Cousin  to  the  French  Government,  on  the  school 
systems  of  Prussia  and  Holland,  had  awakened 


J 


170      MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

widespread  interest  in  these  systems^  and  led  the 
friends  of  progress  everywhere  to  seek  in  these 
European  systems  for  remedies  for  local  evils. 
They  saw  at  once  that  whatever  success  these 
new  systems  had  already  achieved  was  due  to 
the  admirable  methods  for  securing  competent 
teachers. 

Seizing  upon  this  idea,  and  taking  for  his  text 
thje  motto/^  As  is  the  teacher  so  is  the  school/' 
Rev.  Charles  Brooks,  of  Hingham,  in  1835  began 
a  most  vigorous  campaign  in  favor  of  normal 
schools  in  Massachusetts.*  In  public  meetings 
throughout  the  State,  and  before  the  Legislature, 
he  preached  his  doctrine.  Memorials  were  se- 
cured from  county  conventions  and  from  the 
American  Institute  of  Instruction,  f  The  first 
report  of  the  Board  of  Education  asked  for 
normal  schools.  Governor  Everett  indorsed  the 
plan  in  his  inaugural.  Mr.  Mann,  in  all  the 
counties  of  the  State,  lectured  on  the  topic.  Spe- 
cial Preparation  a  Prerequisite  for  Teaching.]; 
^  While  all  these  men  talked,  one  man  acted, 
y  Edmund  Dwight,  of   Boston,  a  member  of  the 


*  Barnard's  Normal  Schools,  p.  125  ;  same  in  Barnard's  Jour- 
nal of  Education,  vol.  i,  p.  587. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  85. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  131 ;  same  in  Mann's  Lectures  and  Reports  on 
Education,  Boston,  Lee  &  Shepard,  1872,  p.  89. 


HORACE^  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     171 

Board  of  Education,  offered  to  give  ten  thousand 
dollars  if  the  Legislature  would  appropriate  an 
equal  sum  for  the  instruction  of  teachers  in  nor- 
mal schools.*  Mr.  D wight  had  been  a  leader  in 
promoting  the  great  manufacturing  and  railroad 
enterprises  of  the  day.  Brought  thus  in  contact 
with  the  laboring  classes  in  different  parts  of  the 
State,  he  had  come  to  have  a  deep  interest  in  the 
educational  problem  of  the  day — the  renovation 
of  the  common  schools.  He  had  read  Cousin's 
report,  and,  moved  by  these  influences,  he  had 
been  most  influential  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Board  of  Education,  and  at  his  own  table  made 
the  first  proposition  that  Mr.  Mann  should  be 
secretary  of  the  board. 

The  generous  offer  of  Mr.  D  wight  was  com- 
municated to  the  Legislature  by  Mr.  Mann,  and 
on  the  19th  of  April,  1838,  resolves  were  passed 
accepting  the  proposition,  and  appropriating  ten 
thousand  dollars  to  be  expended  by  the  Board 
of  Education  in  the  training  of  teachers.  With 
these  sums  at  their  disposal  the  board  decided 
to  establish  three  schools  for  three  years.  In 
locating  these  schools,  the  board  required  of  the 
towns  that  they  should  furnish  buildings  and 


*  For  memoir  of  Edmund  Dwight,  see  Barnard's  Journal  of 
Education,  vol.  iv,  pp.  1-23. 
13 


172    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

fixtures,  and  pay  all  expenses  except  the  com- 
pensation of  teachers. 

Plymouth  County,  where  great  interest  had 
been  created  by  the  labors  of  Mr.  Brooks,  made 
the  first  proposal  and  was  first  accepted ;  but  be- 
fore the  competition  between  the  towns  could  be 
adjusted  a  school  was  opened  at  Lexington,  July 
3,  1839 — the  first  in  America — and  one  at  Barre, 
September  4th.  The  Plymouth  County  school  was 
opened  at  Bridgewater,  September  9,  1840.  At 
the  end  of  the  tentative  period  of  three  years  the 
schools  were  so  firmly  established  that  the  State 
assumed  the  entire  burden  of  their  continued 
support. 

It  fell  thus  to  the  lot  of  Mr.  Mann  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  birth  and  to  watch  over  the  infancy 
of  these  schools,  and  never  did  feeble  nurslings 
have  more  sympathetic  and  more  solicitous  care. 
'  He  selected  the  first  principals,  made  out  the  first 
plan  of  organization  and  instruction,  and  they 
stand  for  all  time  inseparably  associated  with  his 
name  and  work. 

Besides  the  normal  schools,  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation set  in  operation  another  agency  for  the 
improvement  of  teachers,  called  Teachers^  Insti- 
tutes. The  idea  was  borrowed  from  New  York, 
where,  under  county  superintendents,  bodies  of 
teachers  had  come  together  to  study  for  several 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     173 

days   in   succession,  under   competent  instruct — ■ 
ors,  methods  of    school    instruction  and    disci- 
pline. 

Mr.  Mann  had  no  funds  at  his  disposal  to  in- 
augurate such  a  system.  Again  Mr.  Dwight's 
generous  friendliness  came  to  his  aid  with  an 
offer  of  one  thousand  dollars  to  enable  him  to 
try  the  experiment.  An  institute  was  proposed 
in  Pittsfield.  On  the  morning  of  the  appointed 
day  Mr.  Mann  and  Governor  Briggs  repaired  to 
the  schoolhouse  where  the  meeting  was  to  be 
held.  No  preparation  had  been  made.  The  Gov- 
ernor borrowed  a  couple  of  brooms  from  a  neigh- 
bor, and  he  and  the  secretary  swept  the  room 
and  prepared  it  for  the  gathering.* 

Notwithstanding  this  unpromising  beginning, 
the  meetings  were  so  successful  that  the  next 
Legislature  made  an  appropriation  for  their 
maintenance,  and  no  year  since  has  such  an  ap- 
propriation been  wanting.  In  the  earlier  years 
the  money  was  used  to  pay  the  board  of  the  as- 
sembled teachers,  while  the  instructors  gave  their 
services.  As  the  system  became  popular,  the 
people  of  the  towns  welcomed  the  teachers  to 
their  homes.     In  the  long  list  of  institute  in- 


*  Life  of  Horace  Mann,  by  his  Wife,  Boston,  Willard  Small, 
1888,  p.  242. 


174    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

structors,  the    names    of    Agassiz,  Gnyot,   and 
Lowell  Mason  stand  pre-eminent. 

One  other  feature  of  the  common-school  re- 
vival is  worthy  of  note.  Early  in  1837  the  Legis- 
lature authorized  the  school  districts  to  expend  a 

*^  small  sum  of  money  for  a  library.*  At  first  few 
of  the  districts  availed  themselves  of  the  privi- 
lege, but  through  the  influence  of  the  Board  of 
Education  a  general  interest  was  awakened. f 
Books  adapted  for  the  purpose  were  prepared 
and  published  with  the  approval  of  the  board/ 
and  the  district  library  became  a  most  valuable 
adjunct  of  the  district  school. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1848  Mr.  Mann  gave 
up  his  work  as  secretary,  having  accepted  a  seat 
^  in  Congress  as  the  successor  of  John  Quincy 
Adams.  It  is  fitting  here  to  ask  what  progress 
had  been  made  in  the  evolution  of  the  Massachu- 
setts public  schools  during  these  twelve  years  of 

^'    Mr.  Mann's  labors. 

yy^        Statistics  tell  us  that  the  appropriations  for 

public  schools  had  doubled  ;  that  more  than  two 

million  dollars    had    been    spent    in    providing 

better  schoolhouses ;  that  the  wages  of  men  as 

—   teachers  had    increased    sixty-two  per  cent,  of 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  April  12,  1837. 
f  Second  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, pp.  18-20.    Third  Annual  Report,  pp.  11-17,  24-32. 


"       HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL  OP  EDUCATION.     175 

women  fifty-one  per  cent,  while  the  whole  num- 
ber of  women  employed    as    teachers    had    in-    ^ 
creased  fifty-four  per  cent ;  one  month  had  been 
added  to  the  average  length  of  the  schools ;  the  *" 
ratio  of  private-school  expenditures  to  those  of  ^ 
the  public  schools  had  diminished  from  seventy-   v, 
five  per  cent  to  thirty-six  per  cent ;  the  compen- 
sation of  school  committees  had  been  made  com-   >- 
pulsory,  and  their  supervision  was  more  general  ^ 
and  more  constant ;  three   normal   schools  had  ^ 
been  established,  and  had  sent  out  several  hun- 
dred teachers,  who  were  making  themselves  felt 
in  all  parts  of  the  State. 

All  these  changes,  great  as  they  were  in  them- 
selves, had  their  chief  significance  as  indications 
of  a  new  public  spirit.  The  great  work  which 
had  been  accomplished  had  been  to  change  the 
apathy  and  indifference  of  the  people  toward  the  ^ 
common  schools  into  appreciation  and  active 
interest.  This,  once  secured,  was  a  guarantee  of 
future  progress,  and  with  it  nothing  would  be 
impossible. 

In  achieving  this  result,  Horace  Mann's  pre- 
eminence is  indisputable.  Much  had  been  done 
before  his  time  :  some  men  had  come  out  into  the 
light ;  truth  had  been  preached ;  converts  had 
been  made ;  far-seeing  men  had  projected  far- 
reaching  schemes.     But  the  great  body  of  the 


176    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

people  of  Massachusetts  were  as  ■aiimoved  by  all 
that  his  predecessors  had  done  as  the  depths  of 
the  ocean  are  unmoved  by  the  winds  that  agitate 
its  surface. 

Mr.  Mann  was  not  an  original  thinker  along 
educational  lines:  he  read,  observed,  absorbed, 
and  then  gave  out.  For  fifteen  hours  a  day  for 
pearly  twelve  years,  without  a  day  for  recreation, 
^  he  gave  himself  to  the  work  of  convincing  and 
moving  the  Massachusetts  public.  He  sowed  be- 
side all  waters.  ■• 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  popular  opinion  has 
come  to  associate  all  modern  educational  reforms 
with  the  name  of  Horace  Mann.  He  is  thought 
to  have  been  the  father  of  normal  schools,  of 
high  schools,  of  graded  schools,  of  methods  of 
teaching — the  destroyer  of  the  district  schools 
and  the  academies.  By  some  he  is  honored  as 
,  the  morning  star  of  the  reformation ;  by  others 
he  is  esteemed  an  iconoclast  and  a  vandal.  He 
was  neither :  he  was  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness ;  and  men  did  hear,  and  did  heed,  and  did  re- 
spond. Not  readily,  nor  universally.  The  story 
of  his  labors  reads  like  a  chapter  in  the  Acts  of 
^'the  Apostles,  so  disheartening  was  the  coldness, 
so  varied  and  persistent  the  opposition. 

Many  of  the  conventions  were  small  and 
spiritless.    This  was  especially  true  in  the  autumn 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL  OF   EDUCATION.     177 

of  1840,  when  political  excitement  ran  high,  and 
the  people — even  the  best  of  them — went  by  the 
doors  of  his  meetings  in  throngs,  to  attend  log- 
cabin  and  hard-cider  rallies  in  distant  towns. 
Not  that  they  had  anything  against  Mr.  Mann ; 
on  the  contrary,  had  he  been — as  in  earlier  days 
— an  active  participant  in  these  political  move- 
ments, they  wonld  have  flocked  to  hear  him.  It 
was  this  very  indifference  to  the  cause  which  , 
he  had  espoused  which  wounded  his  sensitive  / 
spirit ;  so  he  writes  in  his  journal,  "A  miserable, 
contemptible,  deplorable  convention ^^ ; *  again: 
^'  Politics  is  the  idol  which  the  people  have  gone 
after,  and  the  true  gods  must  go  without  wor- 
ship. ...  If  I  were  not  proof  against  slights, 
neglect,  and  mortification,  I  should  abandon  the 
cause  in  despair."  f 

Nor    was    active    opposition  wanting.      The    J 
most  serious  came  from  the  Legislature ;  the  most 
contemptible,  from  the  religious  press ;  the  most 
humiliating  to  the  friends  of  education,  from  the 
schoolmasters. 

The  State  election  of  1839  was  signalized  by  a 
political  overturn,  by  which  the  oft-defeated 
Democratic  candidate  for  Governor,  Marcus  Mor- 
ton, was  elected  by  a  majority  of  one  vote,  and 

*  Life  of  Horace  Mann,  p.  135.  f  Ibid.,  p.  136. 


178    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  Whig  ascendency  in  the  Legislature  was 
broken.  Governor  Morton,  in  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress, without  directly  attacking  the  Board  of 
Education,  by  innuendo  opened  the  way  for  his 
followers  in  the  Legislature  to  a  direct  assault. 
He  suggested  that  to  those  nurseries  of  pure 
democracy — the  town  and  district  meetings — 
should  be  left  the  control  and  care  of  the  com- 
mon schools.  A  committee  on  retrenchment,  act- 
ing on  this  hint,  went  out  of  its  way  to  recom- 
mend the  abolition  ol  the  board,  declaring  that, 
instead  of  a  State  Board,  there  should  be  a 
Board  of  Education  in  every  school  district,  and 
that  that  board  should  be  composed  of  the  fa- 
thers of  the  children. 

The  matter  went  to  the  Committee  on  Educa- 
tion, from  which  came  a  majority  report  recom- 
mending the  repeal  of  all  legislation  establishing 
the  Board  of  Education  and  the  normal  schools, 
and  the  refunding  to  Mr.  D  wight  of  the  money 
contributed  by  him.  The  board  was  assailed  in 
this  report  rather  for  what  it  might  do  than  for 
what  it  had  done;  for  its  centralizing  tendency 
— a  tendency  to  acquire  controlling  influence 
over  the  school  interests  of  the  State.  It  was 
/charged  with  trying  to  Prussianize  the  schools, 
/  and  to  substitute  for  the  democratic  principles 
of  the  past  the  arbitrary  methods  of  European 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.    179 

despotisms — with  being  an  ingenious  instrument 
for  crushing  out  the  liberties  of  the  people.  The 
district  libraries  approved  by  the  board  were  a 
menace  to  the  moral  and  religious  interests  of 
the  State,  because  they  contained  no  sectarian 
books.  The  normal  schools  were  unnecessary 
and  useless.  The  academies  and  high  schools 
could  furnish  all  the  teachers  that  were  needed, 
and  they  cost  the  State  nothing;  any  one  who 
had  been  well  instructed  could  instruct  others. 

A  minority  of  the  committee,  consisting  of 
only  two  members,  presented  a  counter  report, 
which  showed  so  clearly  the  illogical  and  absurd 
/  position  of  the  majority,  and  defended  so  ably 
the  Board  of  Education  and  its  measures,  that  it 
secured  the  approval  of  the  House.  The  oppo- 
sition was  defeated  by  the  decisive  vote  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty-two  to  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
two. 

The  period  occupied  by  the  discussion  was 
perhaps  the  most  anxious  time  that  the  friends 
of  educational  progress  in  Massachusetts  had 
ever  experienced.  And  not  in  Massachusetts 
alone :  in  New  York  and  Connecticut  reactionary 
movements  had  already  been  successful,  and  de- 
feat in  Massachusetts  would  have  been  a  national 
calamity. 

Mr.  Mann's  pronounced  Unitarianism  made 


180     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Mm  from  the  first  an  object  of  suspicion  to  many 
of  the  people  calling  themselves  evangelical. 
The  loss  of  Harvard  College  to  orthodoxy,  and 
the  wholesale  looting  of  the  old  churches  which 
had  accompanied  the  Unitarian  schism,  led  the 
older  denominations  to  fear  that  the  Board  of 
Education  was  merely  an  instrument,  contrived 
under  plausible  pretexts,  to  bring  the  public 
school  interests  of  the  State  under  Unitarian 
control,  as  the  college  had  been  brought.  They 
saw  in  the  normal  schools,  under  Mr.  Mann's 
direction,  a  most  insidious  means  of  filling  the 
schools  with  Unitarian  teachers,  and  in  the  dis- 
trict libraries — with  their  claim  to  be  nonsec- 
tarian — a  device  for  poisoning  at  the  fountain 
the  minds  of  the  people.  So  the  denominational 
papers  kept  up  a  running  fire  of  criticism,  sec- 
onded all  the  hostile  efforts  in  the  Legislature, 
and  opened  their  columns  to  the  most  malignant 
personal  attacks.*  While  Mr.  Mann  hated  ortho- 
doxy as  much  as  the  orthodox  distrusted  him, 
yet  the  consciousness  of  the  sincerity  and  single- 
ness of  purpose  in  his  educational  work  sus- 
tained him  through  all  this  annoying  experience. 

*  See  Christian  Witness,  1844,  February  23,  March  29,  May 
17,  July  26 ;  1845,  February  28,  April  4,  May  16 ;  Boston  Re- 
corder, 1847,  January  14,  February  26,  May  6,  May  27,  June  17, 
November  17;  1848,  February  18,  July  28. 


HORACE   MANN— REVIVAL   OF  EDUCATION.     181 

The  story  of  this  period  of  revival  would  not 
be  complete  without  a  notice  of  the  attitude  of 
tlie  teachers  themselves. 

Mr.  Mannas  Seventh  Report  consisted  of  a  de- 
scription of  European  schools  as  he  had  seen 
them  in  a  tour  of  inspection  just  completed. 
This  report  was  made  the  pretext  for  an  attack 
upon  Mr.  Mann  by  the  masters  of  the  Boston 
grammar  schools,  thirty-one  in  number,  in  a 
pamphlet  of  one  hundred  and  forty-four  pages. 

In  this  document  the  masters  accuse  Mr.  Mann 
of  ignorance  of  education  in  general  and  of  the 
Boston  schools  in  particular;  of  bearing  false 
witness  against  the  schools  of  Massachusetts,  in 
order  to  magnify  his  own  work  as  a  reformer ;  of 
hasty  conclusions  from  scanty  observation.  They 
minimize  the  value  and  the  work  of  the  normal 
schools,  and  then,  selecting  three  subjects — oral 
instruction,  the  teaching  of  reading,  and  corporal 
punishment — proceed  at  great  length  to  antago- 
nize the  views  of  Mr.  Mann.  The  whole  docu- 
ment was  a  confession  of  weakness  and  fear,  by 
men  who  felt  the  ground  slipping  from  beneath 
their  feet — men  who  were  conscious  that  if  the 
principles  and  methods  advocated  by  Mr.  Mann 
should  obtain  general  acceptance,  their  own  days  / 
were  numbered;  if  the  world  should  move  in 
that  direction,  they  must  be  stranded. 


182    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

Mr.  Mann  replied  to  this  pamphlet ;  the  mas- 
ters replied  to  his  reply ;  and  he  returned  again  to 
the  attack,  while  a  guerrilla  warfare  of  pamphlets 
was  waged  by  partisans  of  the  principal  com- 
batants.* 

Two  events  of  historic  importance  are  asso- 
ciated with  this  controversy.  Some  thirty  or 
forty  men  in  Boston,  anxious  to  give  Mr.  Mann 
a  tangible  proof  of  their  confidence  and  apprecia- 
tion, knowing  how  near  his  heart  were  the  nor- 
j  mal  schools,  offered  to  give  five  thousand  dol- 
//lars,  if  the  State  would  give  as  much,  to  provide 
buildings  for  these  schools,  which  had  occupied 
only  temporary  quarters.  Charles  Sumner  gave 
his  personal  bond  for  the  amount.  The  Legis- 
lature accepted  the  offer,  and  the  buildings  at 
Bridgewater  and  Westfield  were  erected.  When, 
it  was  found  that  such  buildings  as  were  needed 
could  not  be  built  for  the  sum  at  the  disposal  of 
the  board,  Mr.  Mann  guaranteed  the  additional 
amount,  and  paid  six  or  seven  hundred  dollars 
from  his  own  private  means.  This  was  but  a 
single  instance  of  pecuniary  sacrifice  for  the  good 
of  the  cause. 

The  other  event  was  the  founding  of  the  Mas- 


*  For  titles  of  the  Mann  Controversy  pamphlets,  see  Bar- 
nard's Journal  of  Education,  vol.  v,  p.  651. 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OP  EDUCATION.    183 

sachusetts  Teachers'  Association,  in  the  same 
year.  This  was  designed  to  follow  np  and  make 
general  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Mann  and  his  meas- 
ures, begun  by  the  Boston  masters.  The  call  for 
the  meeting  invited  practical  teachers,  and  it  was 
intended  by  the  phrase  to  exclude  Mr.  Mann.* 
The  general  tone  of  the  first  meeting  was  antago- 
nistic. A  resolution  approving  the  Board  of  Ed- 
ucation was  tabled.  The  only  supporter  of  Mr. 
Mann's  views  was  Mr.  Pierce,  Principal  of  the 
West  Newton  Normal  School.  A  man  from  Al- 
bany was  glad  to  find  the  convention  so  sound 
and  so  opposed  in  spirit  to  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, and  he  declared  that  the  New  York  State 
Association  had  been  founded  to  counteract  sim- 
ilar heresies,  t 

This  opposition  from  within  the  educational 
ranks  can  only  be  explained  on  the  theory  of  Dr. 
Harris,  that  the  profession  of  teaching  tends  to 
make  men  conservative.  The  necessities  of  in- 
struction compel  the  teacher  to  reverence  what  is 
known,  what  is  fixed,  and  to  be  suspicious  of  the 
untried.     Occupied  in  restraining  the  eccentrici- 

*  Life  of  Horace  Mann,  by  his  Wife,  pp.  244,  245. 

f  At  the  next  meeting  a  resolution  was  adopted  disclaiming 
any  intention  to  antagonize  the  Board  of  Education.  Benja- 
min Greenleaf  declared  that  the  association  meant  "  peace  on 
earth  and  good  will  to  Mann." 


184    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

ties  and  vagaries  of  childhood,  his  first  instinct 
is  to  oppose  the  new  as  visionary  and  fantastic. 

Charitable  as  this  philosophy  is,  this  opposi- 
tion of  teachers — this  wounding  of  the  cause  of 
education  in  the  house  of  its  friends — was  most 
harassing  and  discouraging  to  Mr.  Mann.  Time 
which  he  might  have  spent  in  furthering  the 
cause,  or  in  needed  rest  and  recreation,  was  used 
in  repelling  enemies  or  in  quieting  the  apprehen- 
sion of  friends. 

When  we  set  ourselves  to  measure  the  work 
of  Mr.  Mann,  all  this  must  be  taken  into  account. 
He  fought  the  battle  of  educational  reform  in 
Massachusetts  through  to  the  end  and  conquered. 
Apathetic  indifference,  hide-bound  conservatism, 
niggardly  parsimony,  sectarian  bigotry,  and 
political  animosity  surged  around  him  as  the 
enemies  of  France  surged  around  the  white 
plume  of  Henry  of  Navarre ;  but  he  left  the  field 
so  clear,  that  since  his  day  none  of  these  reaction- 
ary forces,  singly  or  combined,  have  made  any 
successful  opposition  to  the  ongoing  movements 
of  the  cause  of  popular  education. 

To  the  vigor,  the  skill,  the  self-sacrificing 
ardor,  and  the  conscientious  rectitude  with  which 
he  conducted  the  offensive  and  defensive  cam- 
paigns of  his  official  life,  is  due  the  fact  that 
Massachusetts  has  suffered  none  of  those  educa- 


HORACE  MANN— REVIVAL  OF  EDUCATION.     185 

tional  reverses  which,  have  befallen  most  of  the 
other  States.  The  school  children  of  Massachu- 
setts made  no  mistake  when  they  placed  in  front 
of  the  Capitol  of  the  State  a  statne  of  Horace 
Mann  as  of  their  benefactor  and  their  ideal. 


I 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

All  evolutions  are  conditioned  by  two  forces. 
/  Each,  organism  takes  on  new  forms  nnder  the 
pressure  of  changing  environment,  while  heredity 
holds  it  true  to  its  type  through  all  its  modifica- 
tions. The  Massachusetts  school  system  affords 
a  striking  illustration  of  this  broadest  general- 
ization of  modern  science. 

There  have  been  three  historical  epochs,  each 
characterized  by  a  special  form  of  the  school  sys- 
tem: First,  tbe  town  period,  with  the  dame  school, 
the  reading  and  writing  school,  and  the  grammar 
school ;  then  the  period  of  d§gentralization,  with 
\  the  district  school  and  the  academy ;  and,  lastly, 
the  modern  period,  most  strongly  centralized, 
characterized  by  the  graded  schools. 

As  we  followed  the  movement  of  population 
away  from  the  original  seats,  spreading  itself 
more  and  more  into  the  wilderness  as  it  followed 
the  retreating  wave  of  Indian  depredation,  occu- 
pying isolated   choice  bits  of  arable  land,  and 


c 


186 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  187 

utilizing  streams  for  the  mill  and  the  forge,  so 
now  we  have  to  note  a  process  exactly  the  re- 
verse :  the  movement  from  the  extreme  of  segre- 
gation to  the  extreme  of  aggregation — a  move- 
ment which  has  brought  back  the  people  into 
populous  centers,  changed  the  farm  to  forest,  left 
along  the  country  roads  a  few  old  apple  trees  or 
a  clump  of  lilacs,  an  ancient  dam  or  a  broken 
flume,  to  verify  tradition  that  here  was  once  a 
house  and  there  a  mill. 

While  the  revival  of  education  was  in  prog- 
ress under  Mr.  Mann  and  his  predecessors,  other 
changes  were  going  on — industrial  and  social 
changes ;  and  these,  rather  than  the  theories  of 
educationists,  are  responsible  for  the  modern 
school  system. 

In  1820,  when  Mr.  Carter  began  his  agitation 
for  reform,  Massachusetts  was  an  agricultural 
State.  In  1850  it  had  become  a  manufacturing 
State.  In  1820  its  population  was  native-born 
and  homogeneous.  In  1850  there  were  two  hun- 
dred thousand  foreigners — one  fifth  of  the  whole 
population,  and  these  so  diffused  as  to  be  found 
in  every  town  in  the  State  but  one.* 

During  those  thirty  years  eighty-eight  towns 


*  A  Statistical  View  of  the  Population  of  Massachusetts  from 
1765-1840,  by  Jesse  Chickering,  Boston,  Little  &  Brown,  1846. 
14 


188    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM.     \, 

gained  one  hundred  and  fifty-three  per  cent  in 
population,  while  the  other  two  hundred  and 
thirteen  towns  gained  only  thirty-seven  per  cent. 
Of  the  total  gain  in  population,  these  eighty- 
eight  towns  had  made  seventy-seven  per  cent. 

In  1820  there  were  no  cities  and  no  railroads. 
In  1850  there  were  seven  cities,  arid  all  the  main 
railroad  lines  were  in  successful  operation. 

When  Francis  Cabot  Lowell,  in  1815,  at  Wal- 
tham,  for  the  first  time  in  history  brought  to- 
gether all  the  processes  of  cotton  manufacture, 
and  so  established  the  modern  factory  system,  he 
set  in  operation  forces  whose  outcome  he  could 
not  have  conceived,  and  we  have  only  begun  to 
recognize  and  measure. 

Aggregations  of  population  there  had  been 
before,  but  they  had  always  been  commercial  in 
their  origin  and  purpose,  and  limited  in  number 
by  the  possibilities  of  profitable  exchange.  The 
power  loom,  with  its  newly  invented  accessories, 
utilized  by  capital  in  the  factory,  made  aggrega- 
tions of  people  possible  wherever  streams  gath- 
ered force  over  falls  and  rapids  in  their  passage 
to  the  sea.  Every  factory  village  became  a  cen- 
ter of  a  new  life.  With  the  mills  came  stores, 
banks,  new  churches,  new  social  organizations, 
more  ready  money,  more  willingness  to  spend  it, 
a  wider  separation  of  social  classes,  more  desire 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  189^^-^ 

for  novelty  and  change.  Life  became  faster ;  it 
made  greater  demands,  developed  new  powers, 
offered  new  problems,  and  these  not  material 
only,  but  political,  social,  and  religions — problems 
which  to-day  put  Christianity  to  a  severer  test 
than  it  has  encountered  before  in  the  nineteen 
hundred  years  of  its  history. 

Invention  stimulated  invention,  new  processes 
multiplied,  and  new  products.  New  supplies  cre- 
ated new  demands.  Things  once  luxuries  became 
necessities.  The  railroads,  increasing,  widened 
the  circle  of  intercourse  and  exchange,  and 
made  every  populous  center  in  a  measure  cosmo- 
politan. 

The  factory  system,  moreover,  first  checked  ^^/""^ 
the  tide  of  emigration  which  had  for  a  generation  ^^ 
been  setting  westward,  and  it  developed  immi-     C-^ 
gration,  first  of  the  Irish,  then  of  the   French 
Canadians,  then  of  all  nationalities   and  races. 
Nor  were  these  influences  long  confined  to  the 
cotton-manufacturing    centers,  but   rapidly   ex- 
tended to  other  industries,  until  they  had  in- 
cluded the  manufactures  of  wool,  of  paper,  of  rub- 
ber, of  metals,  and,  last,  of  leather,  and  until,  in 
one  third  of  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  State,  are 
aggregated  nine  tenths  of  the  population  of  the 
State. 

Turning  now  to  the  educational  side,  it  is  easy 


I   190    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

/    to  see  that  so  radical  a  change  in  environment 

1/     must   have   been   followed   by  no    less    radical 

changes  in  the  educational  system,  and  to  it  we 

must  look  for  explanation  of  the  changes  which 

we  know  have  occurred. 

1       The  graded  school,  with  its  supplement,  the 
free  high  school,  the  decay  of  the  academies,  the 
decline  and  fall  of  the  district  system,  evening 
schools,  scientific  and  technical  schools,  parochial 
schools,  supervision  by  specialists,  the  improve- 
Jy'  ment  of  school  architecture,  compulsory-attend- 
V\/    ance  laws,  truant  laws  and  truant  schools — all 
these  are  directly  due  to  the  change  from  rural 
to  urban  life,  consequent  upon  modern  mechan- 
ical inventions   and  their  utilization  under  the 
.  factory  system.     It  is  an  interesting  fact  that 

Cthe  incorporation  of  the  manufacturing  town  of 
Lowell  occurred  in  the  same  year  with  the  resto- 
ration of  the  town  school  system.  It  will  be  our 
work  in  this  lecture  to  study  these  recent  changes 
— their  order  and  their  relation. 

Foreshadowings  of  grading  may  be  discovered 
early  in  the  history.  The  exclusion  of  "  A-B-C- 
darians ''  from  the  Roxbury  Latin  School  in  1668 
was  a  formal  recognition  of  the  principle  of  the 
division  of  labor  in  teaching,  and  in  general  chil- 
dren were  not  expected  to  attend  the  master^s 
school  until  they  could  read ;  as  the  school-rules 


THE   MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  191 

of  Newburyport  said,  ^^Read  tolerably  well,  by 
spelling  words  of  four  syllables/^ 

Before  the  Revolution  it  had  been  common 
for  the  towns  to  support  the  dame  schools.  The 
new  law  of  1789  expressly  authorized  such  sup- 
port, and  in  Newburyport  and  Boston,  as  we 

^^  have  seen,  primary  schools  acquired  a  permanent 
place    in    the    school    system.     But,    generally, 

i  throughout  the  State  the  district  schools  con- 
tained children  of  all  ages.     With  the  growth  of 

i  factory  villages  and  railroad  centers  many  of 
these  mixed  schools  outgrew  the  possibility  of 
successful  discipline  and  instruction. 

Mr.  Mann,  in  his  second  report,  urged  the 
separation  of  the  younger  from  the  older  pupils, 
and  in  subsequent  reports  noted  with  pleasure 
individual  instances  where  his  suggestions  had 
been  followed.  But  so  slow  was  the  process  that 
twelve  years  later  his  successor,  Mr.  Sears,  de-  \^ 
voted  almost  the  whole  of  his  report  to  the  sub- 
ject of  grading. 

About  1850,  as  schools  increased  in  size,  here 
yand  there  a  further  subdivision  was  made,  and  a        / 

7  third  or  intermediate  school  placed  between  the 
primary  and  the  master's  school.  The  masters' 
schools  had  by  this  time  come  to  be  called  gram- 
mar schools,  the  term  having  an  entirely  differ- 
ent signification  from  that  in  the  early  history. 


192    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

About  this  time  Cambridge  made  five  grades 
— alphabet,  primary,  middle,  grammar,  and  high 
— a  more  minute  subdivision  than  existed  any- 
where else. 

The  organization  which  is  now  universal  in 
the  larger  schools  was  first  made  in  Boston  in 
Ififiiy,  ^  Before  that  the  Boston  system  had  been 
unique.*  The  grammar  schools  were  double- 
headed  affairs,  divided  into  a  writing  department 
and  a  reading  department,  each  with  a  master 
and  an  assistant,  the  two  masters  having  original 
and  concurrent  jurisdiction  over  the  pupils.  In 
the  writing  schools,  arithmetic  and  penmanship 
were  taught  to  all,  while  algebra,  geometry,  and 
bookkeeping  were  optional.  In  the  reading 
schools,  reading  and  spelling,  with  definitions, 
grammar,  and  geography,  were  required  studies, 
with  history,  astronomy,  and  natural  philosophy 
optional.  The  pupils  spent  the  morning  in  one 
school  and  the  afternoon  in  the  other.  This 
alternation  was  often  "  from  grave  to  gay,  from 
lively  to  severe.'^ 

In  1845  there  was  a  written  examination  of 
the  highest  classes — the  first  official  written  ex- 


*  For  an  extended  and  interesting  description  of  the  schools 
of  Boston  in  1823,  see  the  Prize  Book  of  the  Public  Latin  School 
in  Boston,  1823,  No.  IV,  pp.  9-12. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  193 

amination.*  This  revealed  such  wide  differences 
and  such  defects  in  the  instruction  as  to  call  for 
radical  reform.  The  reform  took  shape  in  a  new 
organization,  with  a  single  head  and  with  sepa-  ■ 
rate  classrooms,  each  under  an  assistant  teacher. 
While  the  number  of  pupils  under  the  old  sys- 
tem  was  limited  to  the  capacity  of  the  single 
room  which  contained  the  whole  school,  under 

'  the  new  organization  there  was  practically  no 
limit,  for  buildings  could  be  made  with  any  re- 
quired number  of  rooms.  The  system  seemed  to 
be  so  well  adapted  to  the  demands  of  the  grow- 
ing towns  and  cities  that  it  was  soon  widely 
copied,  and  for  the  last  thirty  years  has  been 
general. 

Ten  years  later  Boston  carried  the  system 
to  completion  by  applying  it  to  the  primary 
schools ;  t  and  this  plan,  too,  has  been  foUbwed 
quite  generally  in  the  more  populous  communi- 
ties. 

The  evolution  of  the  graded  school  is  so  re- 
cent that  all  its  stages  can  be  observed  in  exist- 

/  ing  specimens  :  there  are  no  missing  links.  We 
have  in  this  State  to-day  the  ungraded  rural 

*See  Reports  of  the  Annual  Visiting  Committees  of  the 
Public  Schools  of  Boston,  1845. 

t  Annual  Report  of  the  School  Committee  of  Boston,  1863, 
pp.  8-21. 


] 


194    MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

schools,  containing  pupils  from  four  to  seventeen 
years  of  age.  We  have  the  old  division  into 
primary  and  grammar  schools  in  the  rural  vil- 
lages. In  the  small  manufacturing  towns  we 
have  the  threefold  division — the  primary,  the  in- 
termediate, and  the  grammar  schools ;  and  in 
the  cities  and  large  towns  the  fully  developed 
system,  with  separate  classrooms  for  each  grade. 
Several  of  these  types  may  and  do  exist  in  dif- 
ferent portions  of  the  same  town. 

Of  the  graded  school  as  an  educational  instru- 
j  .  ment  I  shall  speak  in  another  connection. 
L^  ^  /  But  this  fact  can  not  be  too  strongly  emplia- 
J)  I  sized,  that  the  system  as  it  exists  is  an  effort  to 
adapt  the  educational  instrument  to  the  environ- 
■  ment — that  it  has  taken  shape  under  the  pressure 
\  of  the  times.  As  evolutions,  no  more  than  revo- 
lutions, go  backward,  so  whatever  weakness  the 
present  system  may  possess,  the  remedy  will  not 
be  found  in  looking  backward,  but  in  advancing 
along  the  lines  already  laid  down. 

The  district- school  ideal  has  in  it  nothing  for 
J  the  present  or  the  future.     We  have  outgrown 
that  as  we  have  outgrown  the  stagecoach  and 
the  warmingpan. 

The  period  under  consideration  is  character- 
ized not  only  by  the  graded  elementary  school, 
but  by  the  free  high  school.     We  have  already 


I 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  195 

noticed  the  provisions  for  secondary  instruction. 
Before  the  Revolution  all  towns  of  one  hundred 
families  must  maintain  the  grammar  school, 
with  a  master  competent  to  fit  boys  for  the  uni- 
versity. After  the  Revolution  the  number  of 
families  was  raised  to  two  hundred,  and  the 
grammar  master  must  be  well  instructed  in 
Latin  and  Greek.  We  have  seen  this  noble  pro- 
vision for  higher  education  at  public  expense 
almost  universally  ignored  under  the  blighting 
influence  of  the  district  system,  and  in  its  place  a 
system  of  private  schools  and  academies  built 
up,  favoring  the  rich  and  burdening  the  ambi- 
tious poor — affording  their  benefits  to  only  one 
sixth  of  the  children  of  the  State. 

Massachusetts  people  are  a  law-respecting 
people,  and  the  ghost  of  this  dead  law  seems  to 
have  haunted  and  troubled  them,  so  that_in_lS24^-^ 
when  things  were  darkest,  they  changed  the  law 
so  that,  in  place  of  the  master  well  instructed  in 
Latin  and  Greek,  the  towns  might  employ  a 
teacher  competent  to  instruct  in  the  three  RX 
and  in  geography,  grammar,  and  good  behavior. 
So  they  laid  the  ghost  of  the  dead  law,  and  the 
very  thing  which  the  early  legislators  sought  to 
guard  against  came  very  near  happening:  that 
learning  should  be  buried  in  the  graves  of  the 
fathers.    What  a  fall  was  there !    Only  twenty- 


196    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

two  towns  were  left  under  the  obligation  to 
support  a  liberally  educated  schoolmaster.  In 
the  face  of  the  example  of  such  legislation  the 
phrase  "  good  behavior/'  must  have  had  a  very 
narrow  interpretation. 

In  the  midst  of  this  darkness  the  example  of 
Boston  became  again  an  inspiration  and  a  guid- 
ing light.  In  1821  Boston  established  the  first 
free  English  high  school  in  America.*  The  gen- 
eral reaction  from  classical  study  had  limited  the 
usefulness  of  the  ancient  Latin  School,  and  no 
public  institution  existed  where  the  sons  of 
merchants  and  small  tradesmen  and  mechanics 
could  receive  an  advanced  English  education. 

To  meet  the  need,  a  new  school  was  estab- 
lished for  boys,  under  the  instruction  of  George 
B.  Emerson.  It  was  called  the  English  classical 
school.  How  it  came  to  be  called  high  school  is 
not  clear.  It  is  not  known  that  the  name  had 
then  been  applied  to  any  school  in  the  country. 
There  is  no  record  of  any  formal  change  of  name, 
but  in  1824,  in  the  records  of  the  school  com- 
mittee, the  secretary.  Rev.  John  Pierpont,  calls 
it  the  English  High  School,  and  so  it  has  con- 
tinued to  be  called. 

*  For  a  succinct  account,  by  Hon.  John  D.  Philbrick,  of  the 
origin  and  plan  of  this  school,  see  Annual  Report  of  School 
Committee  of  Boston,  1863,  p.  153. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  197/ 

Tlie  next  year,  1825,  a  high  school  for  girls 
was  established,  and  in  the  same  year  a  moni- 
torial high  school  in  New  York,  and  from  that 
time  the  name  has  been  common.  But  it  is  a 
singular  fact  that  the  term  was  not  used  in  the 
Massachusetts  Statutes  to  designate  the  town 
school  until  the  Public  Statutes  of  1882. 

Following  the  example  of  Boston,  the  friends  J 
of  education  outside  secured  from  the  Legisla-  / 
ture,  in  1826,*  a  law  establishing  the  modern  high  jT^ 
school  as  a  part  of  the  public-school  system.     It  \y^ 
provided  that  in  towns  having  five  hundred  f am-     . 
ilies  there   should  be  a  master  to  instruct  in> 
United   States    history,   bookkeeping  by    single 
entry,    geometry,    surveying,    algebra;    and    in 
towns  having  four  thousand  inhabitants,  a  mas- 
ter competent  to  instruct  in  Latin  and  Greek, 
history,  rhetoric,  and  logic.     The  schools  were  to 
be  kept  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  inhabitants,  and 
for  ten  months  in  the  year. 

These  schools  were  to  furnish  an  education  as  /"' 

.;/7 

leges.     The  new  law  met  with  opposition  fror 
two  sources :  from  the  academies  and  the  privat^ 
schools,  and  from  the  scattered  inhabitants  of 

*  Laws  of  Massachusetts,  March  4,  1826. 


broad  as  Harvard  College  had  given  a  quarter  of  /'*" 
a  century  before.     They  became  the  people's  col- 


[it4 


V 


198    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  agricultural  towns.  The  two  interests  com- 
bined succeeded  in  procuring  a  repeal  of  so  much 
of  the  law  as  bore  upon  towns  of  five  hundred 
families,  and  they  were  left  with  the  obligation 
to  maintain  only  the  district  schools. 

But  a  new  spirit  was  moving  in  the  com- 
munity; the  revival  of  education  was  in  prog- 
ress, and  in  the  revision  of  the  statutes  in  1836 
the  law  was  re-established  in  its  original  form. 
Notwithstanding  these  facts,  in  1840  the  opposi- 
tion succeeded  in  having  the  obligation  again 
withdrawn,  on  condition  that  the  towns  raise 
twenty-five  per  cent  more  than  ever  before  for 
their  district  schools,  and  this  remained  in  force 
till  1848,  when  the  law  of  1836  was  revived. 
How  much  it  was  needed,  may  be  gathered  from 
Mr.  Mannas  first  report  (1838),  in  which  he  tells 
us  that,  of  forty-three  towns  under  obligation  to 
maintain  the  town  school,  fourteen  were  doing 
so ;  the  other  twenty-nine,  among  the  wealthiest 
towns,  containing  more  than  one  third  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  State  outside  of  Boston, 
were  paying  less  per  scholar  than  the  smaller  and 
poorer  towns,  while  they  were  supporting  private 
schools  for  the  few  at  a  large  expense. 

So  potent  was  the  influence  of  Mr.  Mann,  and 

so  contagious  was  the  spirit  of  reform,  that  in 

i  fourteen    years  fifty  high    schools  were  estab- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

lished.    From  1860  to  1875  ninety  more  were  es- 
tablished.   Towns  whose  population  was  below 
the    legal    requirement   voluntarily    established 
high  schools,  until  now,  while  the  compulsory 
enactment  affects  but  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
four  towns,  two  hundred  and  twenty-three  are 
actually  maintaining  them.    These  two  hundred 
and  twenty-three  towns  contain  more  than  nine 
tenths  of  the  school  children  of  the  State.     And 
the  opportunities  of  the  system  are  made  univer-  j 
sal  by  a  recent  law  allowing  children  living  in  j 
towns  not  having  high  schools  to  be  educated  in/ 
high  schools  in  other  towns  at  public  expenseJ 
with  the  consent  of  the  local  school  committee.* 

Meantime  the  standard  of  these  schools  has 
been  raised  by  broadening  the  course  of  study. 
Latin  and  general  history  have  been  brought/, 
down  to  the  lower  school,  while  the  natural 
sciences,  civics,  and  modern  languages  have  been 
added. 

The  modern  high  school  in  its  origin  was  an- 
other step  in  the  process  of  specialization,  and 
only  completed  the  ideal  graded-school  system. 
In  the  district  schools  most  of  the  more  advanced 
English  branches  were  occasionally  studied  by 
occasional  students.    In  some  schools  a  few  of 

*  Acts  of  1891,  chap.  363. 


200    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  more  intelligent  boys  and  girls  made  a  real 
advance  in  mathematics  and  science ;  in  many 
more  schools  ambitious  boys  and  girls  with  am- 
bitious teachers — usually  college  undergraduates 
— pushed  themselves  into  algebra  and  geometry 
and  natural  philosophy  before  they  could  read 
intelligently  or  perform  creditably  the  simpler 
operations  in  arithmetic. 

To  differentiate  the  functions  of  the  district 
school  became  as  necessary  on  the  upper  as  on 
the  lower  side,  and  the  high  school  gave  the 
same  relief  from  congestion  by  taking  out  the 
adult  pupils  that  the  primary  schools  did  by  tak- 
ing out  the  younger.  The  high  school  became 
thus  the  natural  and  fitting  crown  of  the  public- 
school  system. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  high  school  should, 
from  the  outset,  come  into  competition  with  the 
ancient  academy  and  the  private  school.  As 
with  all  organisms  deriving  their  sustenance 
from  the  same  source  and  seeking  to  maintain 
themselves  in  the  same  environment,  there  be- 
gan a  struggle  for  existence.  The  academies 
gradually  weakened ;  most  of  them  dragged  out 
a  lingering  existence  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time, 
and  finally  gave  up  the  struggle.  A  few  of  the 
stronger  ones,  becoming  sharply  specialized  as 
fitting  schools  and  feeders  of  denominational  col- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  201     / 

leges,  remain,  but  their   ancient  occupation  is 
gone.    They  no  longer  take  the  boys  and  girls  I 
fresh  from  rural  homes  and  district  schools,  with! 
awkward  manners  and  homespun  clothes,  and  givel  --^ 
them  glimpses  of  the  broader  world  of  men  ana    / 
books — a  world  else  all  unknown.    IsTow,  many!  ;  1 
of  their  students  come  from  homes  of  wealth — 1 
most  often  new-made  wealth.    They  come  from    — 
parents  who  love  not  learning  more,  but  exclu-  ^ 
siveness. 

In  contrasting  the  high  schools  with  the  acad-  --- 
emies,  if  we  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  we  must  allow  that  that  which  has 
.survived  is  the  fittest — is  best  adapted  to  the- 
modern  environment.    No  other  institution  could 
have  diffused  so  widely  the  light  of  modern  sci-  — 
ence,  could  have  scattered  so  widely  the  fruit  of    ^ 
modern  discoveries,  could  have  supplied  so  widely 
that  general  intelligence  which  is  the  basis  of 
modern  intellectual  life,  could  have  created  so 
wide  and  intelligent  a  demand  for  the  products  of 
modern  literary  effort,  or  developed  an  appetite 
so  universal  for  the  modern  periodical. 

Another  consideration  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance.   The  free  high   school  introduced  no  / 
new  principle  into  Massachusetts  history.    What- 
ever laissez  faire  political  economists  may  say 
as  to  the  proper  limits  of  the  taxing  power  for 


302  Massachusetts  public-school  system. 

educational  purposes,  granting  to  it  the  right  to 
provide  only  the  rudiments,  the  doctriiie  derives 
no  sanction  from  Massachusetts  law  or  practice. 
The  earliest  law  opened  a  path  to  the  door  of 
the  university  to  all  who  chose  to  walk  therein 
freely,  and  while  at  times  the  scope  of  the  law 
has  been  narrowed,  the  principle  has  never  been 
in  abeyance  for  a  day;  and  although  men  in 
high  places  have  sought  to  undermine  and  dis- 
credit its  operation,  the  popular  instincts  have 
been  true  to  the  convictions  of  the  fathers.  The 
Boston  Latin  School  stands  to-day  a  monument 
to  the  historic  continuity  of  the  principle  em- 
bodied in  the  law  of  1647. 

Mr.  Mann  early  discovered  that  the  most 
/Serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  all  reform  meas- 
ures was  the  district  system.  Did  he  urge  the 
necessity  of  improving  the  quality  of  the  teachers 
— quoting  the  Prussian  axiom, "  As.  is  the  teacher, 
so  is  the  school" — there  stood  the  prudential 
committeeman  with  a  group  of  family  connec- 
tions, his  own  or  his  supporters',  for  whom  he 
must  provide  a  livelihood  in  the  school.  Did  he 
plead  for  better  schoolhouses — there  stood  the 
"deestrick,"  intrenched  behind  statutory  rights 
and  immemorial  usage,  parsimonious,  independ-* 
ent,  defiant.  Already  the  social  and  industrial 
changes  had  affected  many  of  these  districts  un- 


I 


/ 


/  J 

THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM./  20^ 

favorably.  The  exodus  to  the  West  in  tiieearly 
part  of  the  century,  and  the  later  movements 
toward  the  centers  of  manufactures  and  trade, 
had  drawn  away  from  the  rural  districts  the 
flower  of  the  young  men,  naturally  the  most  en- 
terprising and  progressive — men  with  their  faces 
toward  the  rising  sun;  men  who  in  their  new 
homes  were  throwing  themselves  into  the  for- 
ward movements  of  the  century. 

The  population  left  behind  was  of  the  more 
conservative  sort:  old  men,  whose  families  had 
all  been  educated,  and  who  had  therefore  out- 
lived the  services  of  the  schools  but  not  the  ob- 
ligation to  be  taxed  for  them,  and  who  had  little 
respect  for  new-fangled  notions,  especially  if  they 
increased  the  taxes. 

Many  of  these  men  were  wealthy  farmers,  who 
had  a  considerable  following  of  men  more  or  less 
dependent  on  them  for  the  means  of  support.  In 
towns  wholly  agricultural,  the  new  measures, 
therefore,  met  with  little  favor.  In  towns  con- 
taining a  village  center,  growing  populous  under 
the  new  order  of  things,  a  struggle  began  be- 
tween the  village  and  the  outskirts,  often  pro- 
tracted for  years.  The  movement  for  the  town 
liigh  school  was  in  most  cases  an  occasion  for  an 
annual  tug  of  war. 

It  early  became  evident  that  no  substantial 

15 


A\ 


204    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

and  general  progress  could  be  made  so  long  as 
the  district  system  existed.  Batteries  were  early- 
erected  against  it,  and  the  Board  of  Education, 
through  its  secretaries,  kept  up  a  continuous  fire 
of  argument,  entreaty,  fact,  philosophy,  statistics, 
testimony — and  all  this  for  more  than  forty 
years.  It  is  one  of  the  most  memorable  sieges  in 
history.  It  illustrates  in  a  remarkable  way  the 
methods  by  which  reforms  have  to  be  brought 
about  under  a  popular  government.  How  provok- 
ingly  tedious  is  the  process!  how  chafing  and 
galling  to  the  spirit  of  ardent  men — men  who 
know  they  are  right,  but  must  wait  to  convert  a 
generation ! 

It  illustrates,  too,  how  impossible  it  is,  under 
our  government,  to  secure  reforms  by  law.  Four 
attempts  were  made  to  overthrow  the  district 
system  by  force,  and  three  of  them  failed.  The 
fourth  succeeded,  because  there  was  scarcely  any- 
thing then  left  to  overthrow. 

In  1853  *  the  school  committees  were  empow- 
ered to  discontinue  districts,  unless  the  town 
voted  triennially  to  continue  them.  This  law 
was  soon  repealed,  f 

In  1859,t  at  the  spring  session  of  the  Legisla- 

\   *  Acts  of  1853,  chap.  153.  t  ^cts  of  1859,  chap.  253. 

^  '  t  Acts  of  1857,  chap.  254. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  205 

ture,  the  district  system  was  summarily  aBbl- 
islied.  At  a  special  session  in  the  autumn  the 
act  of  abolition  was  repealed.*  Ten  years  later, 
in  1869,t  the  system  was  again  abolished.  The 
bill  for  this  passed  the  Senate  unanimously,  and 
with  only  nine  negative  votes  in  the  House.  The 
next  year,  on  petition  of  a  few  towns,  the  law 
was  practically  repealed  by  allowing  any  town 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  to  re-establish  the  system.  J 
In  1882  *  the  system  was  again  abolished,  and  to 

I  this  time  it  has  remained  abolished. 

r  The  work  to  be  done  throughout  this  long 
conflict  was  to  reinstate  the  town  in  its  original 
authority.  The  first  step  was  to  strengthen  the 
position  of  the  town  school  committee ;  to  induce 
the  towns  to  withdraw  from  the  prudential  com- 
mittee the  selection  of  teachers.  Incidental  to 
this,  the  office  of  town  committee  must  be  made 
more  honorable.  So  provision  was  made  by  law 
for  paying  the  committee  for  their  services ;  at 
first  (1838)  a  dollar  a  day,  then  (1875)  two  dollars 
a  day,  then  two  dollars  and  a  half.  They  were 
required  (1838)  to  make  an  annual  report ;  later 
(1859),  to  make    this  report    in  print;  and,  to 

*  By  General  Statutes,  chap.  182. 
t  Acts  of  1869,  chaps.  110,  423. 
X  Acts  of  1870,  chap.  196. 
«  Acts  of  1882,  chap.  219. 


206    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

strengthen  them  still  more,  there  was  given  to 
them  (1844)  the  absolute  power  of  summary  dis- 
missal of  teachers.  This  provision  of  our  school 
law,  much  criticised  of  late,  originated  as  a  shield 
to  protect  the  school  from  the  baleful  influence 
of  the  prudential-committee  system. 

The  battle  against  the  district  system  raged 
in  every  town.  Against  the  traditional  system 
the  arguments  were  facts:  the  instability  and 
incompetence  of  the  teaching  force — new  and 
unskilled  teachers  succeeding  each  other  with 
kaleidoscopic  rapidity — and  the  inequality  of 
school  privileges  growing  more  marked  with 
every  increase  of  population  in  the  central  dis- 
tricts. 

On  the  other  side  was  an  intense  feeling  of 
jealousy  of  those  central  districts — an  absurd  con- 
ception of  the  school  district  as  the  palladium  of 
popular  liberty,  to  be  defended  to  the  last.  The 
town  system  was  an  entering  wedge  to  central- 
ization and  despotism,  and  backwoods  orators  in 
town  meeting  eloquently  appealed  to  the  memory 
of  Patrick  Henry  and  the  heroes  of  Lexington 
and  Bunker  Hill.  But  public  sentiment  in  Mas- 
sachusetts usually  comes  round,  give  it  time 
enough,  and  one  by  one  the  towns  threw  off  the 
incubus  and  regained  their  original  sovereignty, 
so  that  when,  in  1882,  the  final  act  of  abolition 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  207 

passed  the  Legislature  only  forty-five  towns  were 
affected  by  it.  Hj 

The  popular  awakening  which  gave  character  _ 
to  the  modern  period  has  manifested  itself  no- 
where so  conspicuously  as  in  the  buildings  which 
it  has  furnished  for  its  schools.  Good  school- 
houses  do  not  necessarily  imply  good  schools, 
but  they  do  imply  public  interest,  and  are  the 
fullest  exponent  of  it. 

The  condition  of  the  schoolhouses  when  Mr. 
Mann  began  his  labors  is  best  described  in  his 
own  words :  *  ^'  Respecting  the  three  thousand 
schoolhouses,  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  no 
other  class  of  buildings  within  our  limits,  erected 
either  for  the  permanent  or  temporary  residence 
of  our  native  population,  so  inconvenient,  so  un- 
comfortable, so  dangerous  to  health  by  their 
construction  within,  or  so  unsightly  and  repul- 
sive in  their  appearance  without.  .  .  .  Deserted 
by  all  public  care,  and  abandoned  to  cheerless- 
ness  and  dilapidation.^'  The  estimated  entire 
value  of  the  whole  was  but  little  more  than  half 
a  million  dollars — an  average  value  of  only  two 
hundred  dollars. 

Following  the  publication  of  Mr.  Mann's  re- 


*  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, p.  39. 


208     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

port  on  schoolhouses,  in  1838,  improvement  be- 
gan immediately;  within  two  years  more  new 
houses  had  been  bnilt  than  in  the  ten  years  be- 
fore. In  five  years  $650,000  had  been  spent  in 
erecting  new  houses  and  repairing  old  ones.  In 
1855  the  value  of  school  property  had  risen  to 
$5,000,000,  and  the  average  value  of  schoolhouses 
had  increased  more  than  sixfold.  In  1870  the 
value  had  risen  to  $13,500,000,  and  in  1891  to  $28,- 
461,645.  The  sum  expended  in  1891  for  new 
buildings  and  repairs  was  $2,646,865,  There  are 
to-day  single  schoolhouses  which  have  cost  more 
than  the  value  of  the  whole  three  thousand 
buildings  in  1837.  All  the  changes  in  organiza- 
tion, which  we  have  described,  have  combined 
to  produce  this  marvelous  material  expansion. 
The  massing  of  scholars  in  graded  schools  called 
for  new  and  larger  structures,  and  the  necessities 
of  dense  population  demanded  that  these  should 
be  substantial,  safe,  and  durable. 

As  the  free  high  school  became  more  firmly 
established  in  the  public  system,  it  naturally 
claimed  a  home  somewhat  in  keeping  with  its 
pre-eminence;  so,  year  by  year,  in  cities  and 
country  towns,  there  have  been  erected  high- 
school  houses,  many  of  them  "  beautiful  for  situ- 
ation,""  some  of  them  palatial — triumphs  of  the 
builder's  art,  ministering  to  a  worthy  local  pride. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  209/ 

testifying  to  the  people^s  estimate  of  education, 
and  by  this  testimony  profoundly  influencing  the 
generation  which  is  trained  in  them. 

This  influence  has  by  no  means  been  confined 
to  the  cities.  The  abolition  of  the  district  system 
was  everywhere  followed  by  a  rehabilitation  of 
the  school  property.  The  "little  red  school- 
houses/'  which  tradition  has  glorified,  had  been 
generally  worthless.  Chatham  sold  four,  at  an 
average  of  $41.34.  In  another  town  four  were 
sold  at  $100.  Many  sold  for  from  $5  to  $10.  In 
one  town,  for  a  series  of  years,  all  the  money 
annually  appropriated  for  repairs  on  its  eight 
schoolhouses  was  $5 — an  average  of  627^  cents 
each. 

No  sooner  had  the  towns  taken  the  school- 
houses,  than  the  same  people  who  in  the  district 
meetings  had  resolutely  opposed  any  improve- 
ment came  forward  and  demanded  new  houses 
in  their  district.  Each  new  one  made  others 
necessary,  until  in  scores  of  towns  all  the  schools 
found  themselves  in  new  and  comfortable  quar- 
ters. Within  recent  years  school  sanitation,  fol- 
lowing European  lead,  has  developed  into  a 
science,  and  modern  buildings  are  gradually  be- 
coming as  safe  for  the  bodies  of  the  pupils  as 
they  are  well  adapted  to  the  training  of  the  in* 
tellect. 


210    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  modern  period  is  further  characterized 
by  its  compulsory  legislation  to  promote  school 
attendance.  The  idea  of  compulsion  was  not 
new  in  Massachusetts  educational  history.  The 
earliest  legislation,  as  we  have  seen,  placed  the 
parent  under  legal  obligatio:|3L  to  bring  up  his 
children  to  learning  and  labor,  and  it  placed  the 
local  officers  also  under  obligation  to  enforce  the 
law.  Later,  it  laid  its  hand  on  the  towns  them- 
selves, and  bound  them,  under  heavy  penalties, 
to  provide  schools,  as  means  by  which  the  parent 
could  obey  the  law. 

So  for  two  hundred  years  the  idea  of  com- 
pulsion had  wrought  itself  into  the  tissue  and 
fiber  of  Massachusetts  thought,  strengthened  and 
defended  all  along  by  the  action  of  the  judicial 
authorities,  holding  the  towns  and  parents  and 
committees  up  to  their  duty.  Slowly,  however, 
in  later  days,  public  sentiment  had  been  weaken- 
ing. The  scanty  schooling  which  the  poorer  dis- 
tricts furnished  was  more  than  many  of  the 
people  cared  for.  Hence  much  neglect  had  come 
about.  Even  with  the  better  class,  school  at- 
tendance had  been  subordinate  to  domestic  con- 
venience or  the  supposed  necessities  of  the  farm 
and  the  shop. 

The  concentration  of  population  in  the  manu- 
facturing and  railroad  centers  aggravated  the 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  211 

evil.  There  was  less  home  work  for  children, 
less  opportunity  for  parental  oversight,  stronger 
street  temptations.  So  absenteeism  and  truancy 
increased.  Under  the  graded  system,  absence  and 
tardiness  were  more  serious  evils  than  under  the 
more  free  and  easy  regimen  of  the  district  school. 
This  the  parents  were  slow  to  comprehend;  in- 
deed, in  the  country  districts  they  do  not  yet 
comprehend  it. 

Superadded  to  these  influences  came  foreign 
immigration.  Thousands  of  children  were 
brought  into  the  States  from  England,  Ireland, 
and  Scotland,  where  elementary  education  was  at 
its  lowest  ebb — children  who  had  never  seen  the 
inside  of  a  schoolroom. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  Board 
of  Education  was  established.  By  the  earliest 
returns  it  was  estimated  that,  short  as  the  sum- 
mer schools  were,  only  one  half  the  children 
of  school  age  were  in  attendance,  and  in  the 
winter  schools  only  three  fifths.*  One  of  the 
first  acts  of  the  board  was  to  secure  the  use  of 
registers  of  attendance,  that  the  actual  attend- 
ance might  be  known.  The  facts  corroborated 
the  earlier  estimates. 


*  First  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, p.  87. 


212    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

fith.  all  his  admiration  for  the  new  European 
systems,  Mr.  Mann  had  been  unwilling  to  adopt 
their  compulsory  features.  He  deemed  them  un- 
American,  and  preferred  to  think  that,  by  the 
slow  process  of  enlightenment  and  steady  influ- 
ence, public  sentiment  might  be  brought  up  to 
the  ideal  standard.  After  ten  years  of  effort, 
however,  he  was  compelled  to  acknowledge  that 
the  progress  was  too  slow  ;  that  it  would  require 
half  a  century  to  get  the  children  into  school. 

Before  the  close  of  his  service  he  came  to 
advise  compulsion.  A  few  years  later  the  Board 
of  Education  urged  the  Legislature  to  come  to  its 
aid,  and  in  1852*  the  first  compulsory  school  at- 
tendance Taw  in  the  Union  was  enacted.  It  re- 
quired the  parent  to  send  his  children  between 
eight  and  fourteen  to  school  at  least  twelve 
weeks  in  each  year,  unless  he  was  too  poor,  or 
unless  the  child  was  otherwise  provided  with  the 
means  of  education  for  a  like  period.  The  school 
committee  were  to  inform  the  town  of  violations, 
and  the  town  treasurer  was  to  prosecute.  The 
exemptions  and  the  provisions  for  enforcement 
practically  nullified  the  law. 

But  it  was  something  to  have  the  principle 
recognized.    At  intervals  the  law  has  been  broad- 

*  May  18, 1852. 


THE   MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  213 

ened  and  strengthened.*  The  twelve  weeks  were 
changed  to  twenty  weeks,  and  recently  to  thirty 
weeks.  The  poverty  of  the  parents  is  no  longer 
a  valid  excuse  for  keeping  the  children  from 
school ;  and  if  the  parent  chooses  a  private  school, 
it  must  be  one  approved  by  the  school  com- 
mittee, and  they  can  only  approve  it  when  the 
instruction  is  as  broad  and  as  thorough  as  in  the 
public  schools,  and.  is  in  the  English  language. 
Special  officers,  too,  have  been  appointed,  to  see 
that  the  law  is  enforced. 

It  is  important  to  notice  the  relation  of  the 
modern  statutes  to  the  earliest  ones.  We  dis- 
cover that  the  new  laws  do  no  violence  to  the 
traditional  spirit  or  policy  of  our  people.  The 
parents  have  always  been  under  compulsion  to 
educate  their  children  up  to  the  limit  set  by  the 
State.  They  have  always  been  free  to  choose  such 
means  to  this  end  as  they  prefer.  When,  in  the 
early  days  of  Winchendon,  all  the  men  in  town 
who  could  read  by  turn  taught  the  children,  it 
was  in  obedience  to  the  earliest  law  and  in  the 
exercise  of  individual  freedom.  'Home  instruc- 
tion and  private  schools  have  always  been  legal, 
and  are  no  less  so  to-day.    The  new  laws  are  not 


*  Acts  of  1873,  chap.  279;  1874,  chap.  233;  1876,  chap.  52; 
1878,  chap.  171 ;  1889,  chap.  464. 


vO 


214     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

importations  from  European  despotisms,  but  the 
rehabilitation  of  an  ancient  statute.  Like  the 
old  ones,  they  have  been  made  by  the  people 
themselves,  and  changed  only  to  meet  the  exigen- 
cies of  a  new  environment.  The  selectmen  and 
ministers  can  no  longer  keep  a  vigilant  eye  over 
their  neighbors,  to  see  that  the  children  are  be- 
ing educated.  The  school  census  and  the  school 
register  are  to  do  this  work.  Nonattendance  at 
the  public  school  is  now  made  prima  facie  evi- 
dence of  parental  neglect.  If  the  parent  can  show 
that  he  is  doing  his  duty  by  his  child  in  some 
other  way  equally  good,  the  law  has  no  penalty 
for  him. 

The  introduction  of  the  factory  system  was  a 
new  source  of  danger  to  the  educational  interests 
of  the  State.  "With  the  beginning  of  the  new 
manufacturing  era  in  Great  Britain,  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  last  century,  child  labor  assumed 
new  importance,  and  as  factories  multiplied  they 
became  insatiable  Molochs,  where  children  of  the 
tenderest  ages  were  sacrificed  to  the  greed  of 
mill  owners  and  the  necessities  of  parents.  The 
manufacturing  towns  of  Great  Britain  became 
characterized  by  squalor  and  wretchedness,  ig- 
norance, and  brutality. 

Early  in  this  century  public  attention  in  Eng- 
land was  called  to  the  evils  of  child  labor.    Par- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  215 

liamentary  commissions  were  appointed  to  inves- 
tigate, first,  child  labor  in  factories,*  then  in 
mines,  f  and  then  in  agricultural  communities 
(1867, 1868).  The  revelations  made  by  these  com- 
missions were  startling  and  sickening.  Man's 
inhumanity  to  man  has  rarely  been  painted  in 
stronger  colors.  Mrs.  Browning's  Cry  of  the 
Children  voiced  the  universal  sympathy : 

"  Do  ye  hear  the  children  weeping,  0  my  brothers, 
Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ? 
They  are  leaning  their  young  heads  against  their  mothers, 
And  that  can  not  stop  their  tears." 

Some  humane  legislation  followed  these  dis- 
closures, fixing  a  minimum  age  at  which  chil- 
dren might  be  employed,  and  limiting  the  hours 
of  labor. 

The  men  who  introduced  the  factory  system 
into  Massachusetts — Lowell,  Appleton,  and  their 
associates— took  special  care  to  guard  against 
the  British  factory  conditions  by  which  the  op- 
eratives were  degraded  and  brutalized.  To  their 
wise  and  Christian  foresight  we  owe  it  that 
Lowell  and  Lawrence  did  not  become  copies  of 
Manchester    and    Paisley    and  Glasgow.      Still 

*  See  Reports  of  Factories  Inquiries  Commission,  London, 
1833,  1834. 

f  Children's  Employment  Commission,  First  Report,  Mines, 
London,  1842. 


'-n 


216    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

the  temptations  to  utilize  child  labor  were  great, 
and  increased  with  the  foreign  immigration.  The 
foreign  parents  were  ignorant,  and  many  of  them 
.valued  lightly  the  education  of  their  children, 
preferring  the  present  help  of  their  earnings  to 
the  future  and  less  substantial  results  of  school 
attendance. 

To  regulate  the  employment  of  children  thus 
became  early  a  matter  of  legislative  concern. 
The  first  law  was  enacted  as  early  as  1836.*  This 
forbade  the  employment  of  children  under  fifteen 
years  of  age,  unless  the  child  had  attended  school 
three  months  in  the  year  preceding  his  employ- 
ment. Much  subsequent  legislation  f  has  tended 
to  reduce  the  amount  of  child  labor  in  the  State, 
and  to  promote  and  extend  the  school  advan- 
tages. Now,  no  child  under  thirteen  can  be  em- 
ployed at  all ;  none  under  fourteen,  unless  he  has 
attended  school  thirty  weeks  in  the  year.  The 
penalties  are  heavy  and  the  means  of  enforce- 
ment adequate. 

"While  the  State  has  thus  sought  to  protect 
the  children  from  the  indifference  and  cupidity 
of  parents  and  employers,  it  has  been  no  less 

*  Acts  of  1836,  chap.  245. 

+  Acts  of  1838,  chap.  107;  1842,  chap.  60;  1849,  chap.  220; 
1858,  chap.  83  ;  1867,  chap.  285 ;  1876,  chap.  52 ;  1878,  chap.  257 ; 
1888,  chap.  348. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  217 

vigilant  to  protect  the  child  against  himself — to 
save  him  from  his  vices  and  his  bad  associates ; 
to  take  him  from  the  street  and  put  him  at 
school.  With  the  increase  of  the  foreign  popu- 
lation and  the  growth  of  manufactures,  truancy 
became  alarmingly  prevalent.  The  school  com- 
mittee at  Rockport,  at  one  time,  estimated  that 
one  third  of  the  children  were  habitual  truants. 

In  1850  *  the  first  law  to  prevent  truancy  was 
passed.  It  authorized  the  towns  to  make  by- 
laws to  remedy  the  evil.  This  was  the  grass- 
throwing  stage.  In  1862  f  it  changed  "  may  '"  to 
"  shall/^  and  thus  began  to  throw  stones.  Later  J 
the  towns  were  required  to  appoint  truant  officers, 
and  since  that  whatever  efficiency  the  law  has 
had  has  been  measured  by  the  efficiency  of  these 
officers.  By  faithful  watching,  by  kindly  per- 
suasion, by  unremitting  pursuit,  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  reducing  truancy  to  a  minimum.  They 
have  beeruaided  in  this  work  by  the  establish- 
ment of  county  truant  schools,  where,  under 
judicious  care,  the  boys,  many  of  whom  have 
suffered  from  parental  neglect  and  evil  associates, 
are  won  back  to  right  living. 

*  Acts  of  1850,  chap.  294;  1852,  chap.  253  ;  1853,  chap.  343. 
t  Acts  of  1862,  chaps.  21  and  207;  1865,  chap.  208. 
i  Acts  of  1873,  chap.  262 ;  1874,  chap.  233;  1878,  chap.  217; 
1881,  chap.  144. 


lASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

While  the  influx  of  foreigners  was  taxing  the 
wisdom  of  legislators  and  school  authorities  to 
provide  educational  facilities  for  the  children,  it 
was  also  flooding  the  State  with  illiterate  adults. 
The  condition  and  needs  of  these  people  were 
first  observed  by  persons  engaged  in  charitable 
and  missionary  work  in  the  cities.  They  saw 
the  danger  to  society  from  this  source,  and  were 
the  first  to  apply  a  remedy.  In  connection  with 
the  philanthropic  Christian  work  of  the  Warren 
Street  Chapel  in  Boston,  what  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  first  evening  school  in  this 
country,  was  opened  in  1836  with  two  pupils.* 
More  than  sixty  years  before  (1773),  evening 
schools  were  carried  on  in  Salem  to  teach  a  lim- 
ited number  of  poor  boys  the  mariner^s  art,  and 
others  to  write  and  cipher. 

The  number  of  pupils  at  the  Warren  Street 
Chapel  increased,  and  other  schools  were  estab- 
lished, conducted  by  charitable  workers,  and  aid- 
ed by  insignificant  sums  from  the  city  treasury. 

Similar  schools  were  opened  in  the  manu- 
facturing cities;  all  the  earlier  ones  conducted 
and  supported  as  private  charities,  f     In  1847 1 

*  Twenty-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Education,  pp.  76.  77. 
t  Ibid.,  pp.  77-87. 
i  Acts  of  1847,  chap.  187. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  219 

the  Legislature  authorized  the  towns  to  support 
schools  for  adults,  and  appropriations  began  to 
be  made  from  public  funds.  Ten  years  later,* 
legislation,  while  still  leaving  their  support  op- 
tional, defined  their  place  as  integral  parts  of  the 
public-school  system,  opening  them  to  all  per- 
sons over  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  putting  them 
under  the  control  of  the  school  committee.  In 
1883  t  their  support  became  compulsory  in  towns  j 
having  ten  thousand  inhabitants.  Thus  they 
passed  through  the  three  stages  so  common  in 
our  educational  history :  first  voluntary,  then  i 
authorized,  then  r^uired. 

In  the  earlier  years  the  success  of  the  schools 
was  hindered  by  irregular  attendance — the 
schools  opening  full,  but  gradually  thinning  in 
numbers,  until  they  were  closed  for  want  of 
pupils,  few  of  the  persons  who  patronized  them 
having  more  than  temporary  and  spasmodic  in- 
terest in  learning.  Many  of  the  pupils,  too,  were 
rough  and  disorderly;  and  the  teachers,  chari- 
tably disposed  men  and  women,  but  lacking  the 
power  to  control,  often  failed  to  reduce  the  turbu- 
lent elements  to  the  quiet  necessary  for  school 
purposes.  Gradually  these  evils  have  been  to  a 
great  degree  overcome.     The  unruly  class  has 


*  Acts  of  1857,  chap.  189.        f  Acts  of  1883,  chap.  l74. 
16 


220    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

been  weeded  out.  Regular  teachers  have  been 
employed.  Systematic  classification  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  early  promiscuous  work,  and 
courses  of  study  have  been  developed  specially 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  school. 

The  work,  too,  has  taken  on  a  broader  char- 
acter with  the  establishment  of  evening  high 
schools^*  where  young  men  and  women,  forced 
into  the  ranks  of  breadwinners  from  the  elemen- 
tary schools,  may  pursue  the  same  branches  of 
learning  and  acquire  the  same  culture  as  their 
more  fortunate  brothers  and  sisters  are  doing  in 
the  ordinary  public  high  schools.  There  are 
now  in  the  State  two  hundred  and  fifty-five  even- 
ing schools,  attended  by  twenty-nine  thousand 
two  hundred  and  twenty-one  pupils,  in  fifty-five 
towns  and  cities. 

Out  of  the  necessities  of  this  broadened  and 
more  complex  educational  system  there  has 
been  evolved,  within  the  period  we  are  review- 
ing, a  new  educational  function — that  of  profes- 
sional supervision;  and  a  new  organ  for  the 
function — the  Superintendent  of  Public- Schools. 
The  idea  was  first  put  in  practice  in  New  Eng- 
land, in  Providence — suggested,  it  is  said,  to  its 
originator  there   by  the  factory  system  of  the 

*    ^  *  Acts  of  1886,  chap.  236. 


THE   MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  221 

State.  However  that  may  be,  the  modern  organi- 
zation of  industries  has  furnished  analogy  and 
argument  more  potent  than  any  others  in  secur- 
ing attention  to  the  system  and  promoting  its 
adoption.  The  fact  is  conspicuous,  that  the  suc- 
cess of  all  great  business  enterprises  is  condi- 
tioned not  so  much  on  the  quality  of  the  indi- 
vidual employees,  nor  on  the  general  intelligence 
and  financial  standing  of  the  boards  of  control, 
as  on  the  capacity  of  the  overseers,  the  superin- 
tendents, and  the  general  managers. 

The  modern  principle  of  the  division  of  labor 
has  developed  experts  and  specialists  in  all  lines, 
not  only  material — in  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  commodities — but  in  scientific  research 
and  in  professional  labor.  It  would  have  been 
strange  if  a  principle  so  generally  accepted  and 
applied  had  not  entered  the  realm  of  educa- 
tion. It  has  entered  and  pervaded  it,  on  the 
whole,  with  signal  benefits  and  with  some  draw- 
backs. I 

A  college  president  is  no  longer  a  teacher,  but 
an  administrator  of  college  funds,  which  he  has 
been  successful  in  increasing.  If  he  makes  occa- 
sional excursions  into  the  realm  of  educational 
theory,  it  is  apt  to  be  along  statistical  lines. 
Averages  abound,  and  more  or  less  distinctly 
visible  as  a  motive  is  seen  the  enlargement  of  the 


222    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

college  catalogue,  the  splendor  of  college  num- 
bers. Similar  tendencies  have  developed  them- 
selves in  public-school  management.  The  sys- 
tem has  sometimes  been  made  a  fetich,  and  it  has 
been  worked  on  factory  principles,  with  children 
as  raw  material  to  be  worked  up  according  to 
uniform  patterns,  by  uniform  processes,  to  a  uni- 
form standard.  But  this  is  only  a  passing  phase, 
which  the  schools  are  already  outgrowing. 

The  business  analogy  has  helped  to  carry  for- 
ward the  superintendency  in  Massachusetts. 
Beginning  in  Springfield,  in  1840,  as  an  experi- 
ment, it  had  no  permanent  place  in  the  State 
until  Boston  adopted  the  plan  in  1861.  Soon  a 
State  law  authorized  it,*  and  it  has  slowly  but 
steadily  worked  its  way  into  universal  favor  in 
the  cities  and  largest  towns.  It  has  encountered 
less  opposition  from  business  men  and  in  man- 
ufacturing communities  than  among  farmers, 
who  are  less  conversant  with  modern  industrial 
methods. 

Quite  recently  the  State  has  aided  the  small 
towns  to  employ  superintendents,  in  union  dis- 
tricts,! and  the  "  jingling  of  the  guinea  "  from 

*  For  legislation  concerning  superintendents  of  schools, 
see  Acts  of  1854,  chap.  314 ;  1856,  chap.  232 ;  1860,  chap.  101 ; 
1870,  chaps.  117  and  183  ;  1873,  chap.  108  ;  1874,  chap.  272 

t  Ibid.,  1888,  chap.  431 ;  1890,  chap.  379. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  223 

the  State  treasury  has  helped  to  overcome  the 
fear  of  centralization  among  the  rural  voters. 

The  most  serious  difficulty  in  extending  an(J 
perfecting  the  system  has  been  in  the  lack  oi 
suitable  men.  The  duties  of  the  office  have  been 
arduous,  the  relations  delicate,  the  tenure  pre- 
carious, and  the  pay  out  of  proportion  to  the 
capacity  and  service  demanded;  and  the  best 
men  have  often  been  restrained  by  school  boards 
from  fulfilling  all  the  appropriate  functions  of 
the  office.  In  spite  of  these  hindrances,  it  is  true 
that  the  progress  made  in  public-school  educa- 
tion within  recent  years  has  been  chiefly  due  to 
the  broad  conceptions,  the  wise  plans,  and  the 
skillful  administration  of  these  officers. 

After  all  the  steps  which  the  Commonwealth 
had  taken  toward  making  education  free,  there 
was  one  burden  still  resting  on  the  parents  if 
they  were  honest:  they  must  supply  their  chil- 
dren with  the  books,  etc.,  needed  for  school  use. 
An  early  statute  had  obliged  the  towns  to  fur- 
nish these  necessaries  free  to  the  children  of  the 
poor.*  This  system  made  an  invidious  distinc- 
tion between  the  well-to-do  and  the  indigent.  It 
shackled  honest  poverty  and  shameless  indiffer- 
ence together  and  marked  them  with  the  same 

*  Acts  of  1826,  chap.  143. 


224    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

badge.  Public  attention  was  called  to  the  injus- 
tice and  inconsistencies  of  the  policy.  The  ex- 
ample of  other  communities  was  cited,  where 
free  text-books  had  long  been  furnished. 

Following  her  usual  custom,  in  1873*  the 
State  authorized  the  towns  to  own  the  books  and 
loan  them  to  the  pupils.  Several  cities  and  towns 
at  once  availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity, 
and  with  such  favorable  results,  answering  con- 
clusively all  objections,  that  in  1884  f  compulsion 
took  the  place  of  permission,  and  all  books  and 
supplies  became  free  in  all  grades  of  school. 

In  earlier  days  the  pupils  had  been  required 
to  furnish  the  fuel  for  the  winter  school,  and 
only  after  lively  passages  at  arms  in  town  meet- 
ings and  acrimonious  debates  was  the  burden 
shifted  from  the  parent  to  the  public.  Logical 
consistency  demanded  free  text-books  as  much 
as  free  fuel  and  free  teachers  for  a  free-school 
system. 

The  new  arrangement  proved  its  value  in  a 
rapid  increase  in  school  attendance,  especially  in 
the  high  schools,  where  the  book  biiTd^n  had  been 
heavy.  So  popular  has  the  system  become  that 
for  political  purposes  men  have   contended  for 


*  Acts  of  1873,  chap.  106. 

t  Acts  of  1884,  chap.  103 ;  1885,  chap.  161. 


/ 

THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  225 


the  honor  of  its  paternity,  as  the  cities  of  Greece 
contended  for  the  honor  of  having  cradled  Homer. 

The  kindly  impnlses  prompting  to  the  human- 
itarian movements  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century,  included  in  the  gracious  thought  the  de- 
fgrvMj^  classes.  The  earliest  institutions  for  the 
deaf-mutes,  for  the  blind,  and  for  the  feeble- 
minded were  from  the  first  liberally  subsidized 
by  the  State,  for  the  education  of  its  own  indi- 
gent unfortunates.  In  recent  years  its  policy 
has  widened,  until  now  it  provides  free  instruc- 
tion without  distinction  to  all  its  defective  chil- 
dren. And  that  there  may  be  no  joints  in  its 
harness  through  which  the  arrow  of  criticism 
may  pierce — that  its  educational  practices  may 
conform  to  its  most  advanced  educational  theo- 
ries— it  has  made  ample  provision  to  win  back 
to  lives  of  rectitude  and  usefulness  (by  judicious 
restraint  and  the  regenerating  influences  of  learn- 
ing and  labor)  boys  and  girls  who  have  taken 
the  first  steps  in  crime.  To  this  beneficent  end 
it  established,  in  1847,  the  Lyman  School  for 
Boys,  at  Westborough,  and  in  1856  the  Indus- 
trial School  for  Girls  at  Lancaster. 

While  the  State  has  been  in  these  later  years 
constantly  broadening  the  scope  and  increasing 
the  means  for  elementary  education,  it  has  main- 
tained its  primitive  interest  in  the  higher  edu- 


226    MASSACHUSETTS   PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

cation,  and  its  open-handed  policy  toward  the 
higher  institutions.  Harvard,  for  which  it  made 
its  earliest  appropriations,  has  never  ceased  to  be 
an  object  of  affection  and  pride,  and  the  younger 
institutions  —  Williams,  Amherst,  and  Tufts  — 
have  received  substantial  tokens  of  the  good-will 
of  the  Commonwealth. 

Only  recently  has  the  close  bond  which  con- 
nected Harvard  with  the  State  been  sundered. 
For  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  college  had 
the  same  relation  to  the  State  which  the  ancient 
grammar  school  held  to  the  town.  The  General 
Court  chose  the  president  and  professors  directly 
or  through  the  Governor  and  Council,  as  the 
town  chose  the  schoolmasters.  Until  after  the 
Revolution  the  salaries  of  the  faculty  were  annu- 
ally voted  by  the  General  Court.  Until  1865  the 
chief  officers  of  the  Commonwealth  were  members 
of  the  governing  board  of  the  university.  Since 
that  year  there  has  been  no  official  connection ; 
the  president  and  faculty  no  longer  look  to  the 
Governor  and  Council  for  their  election  or  their 
support. 

But  there  remains  upon  the  statute  book  a 
solemn  obligation,  placed  there  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ago — a  statute  which  gives  to  the  president 
a  sublime  pre-eminence  among  the  educational 
forces  of  the  State — that  famous  law  of   1789, 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.(  I         22^7  / 

which  we  have  before  noticed,  ijmposing^^obli- 
gation  of  moral  instruction.  This  law,  manda- 
tory alike  on  high  and  low,  reaching  down  to  the 
obscurest  teacher  of  the  lowliest  children  in  the 
humblest  school,  yet  imposes  iipon  the  President 
of^iarvard  the,  supreme  responsibility  for  the 
moral  education  of  the  youth  of  the  State.  Bind- 
ing into  one  brotherhood,  for  the  preservation 
of  the  institutions  and  liberties  of  the  Common- 
wealth, all  instructors  of  youth  of  every  title  and 
degree,  it  looks  up  to  the  President  of  Harvard 
as  the  leader  of  them  all. 

The  scientific  spirit  of  the  century  and  the 
industrial  development  of  the  modern  era  have 
made  necessary  appropriate  educational  instru- 
ments, and  such  the  State  has  added  to  its  educa- 
tional forces.  The  Institute  of  Technology,  the 
Worcester  Industrial  Institute,  and  the  Agricul- 
tural College  have  received  generous  largesses 
from  the  public  treasury,  and  all  have  been  con- 
nected with  the  public-school  system  by  means  of 
free  scholarships  to  able  and  needy  students  se- 
lected by  the  Board  of  Education.  -^  v^j 

While  these  institutions  have  carried  forward 
the  education  of  young  men  into  ever- widening 
fields  of  literary  and  scientific  culture,  the  educa-      \ 
tion  of  girls — so  long  delayed,  so  auspiciously 
begun  at  last — ^has  moved  forward  to  triumphant 


,/y 


228    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

success.  Women  who,  as  girls,  sat  on  the  door- 
step of  the  village  school  and  through  the  open 
door  heard  the  boys  recite — the  nearest  approach 
to  higher  education  which  the  public  system  af- 
forded or  general  public  opinion  favored — lived 
to  see,  at  Wellesley  and  Smith,  girls  who  had 
been  fitted  side  by  side  with  boys  in  public  high 
schools,  pushing  their  way  into  the  remotest 
realms  of  knowledge.  Opposed  by  learned  argu- 
ment, and  laughed  at  as  the  ambitious  girls  in 
the  earliest  days  had  been,  yet  by  their  success 
in  achieving  the  highest  scholarship,  while  pre- 
serving intact  all  their  womanliness,  they  have 
proved  the  logic  of  their  detractors  to  be  illogical 
and  have  made  ridicule  itself  ridiculous. 

So  as  never  before,  in  these  colleges  of  men 
and  women,  we  see  fulfilled  the  hope  and  proph- 
ecy of  the  lamented  poet : 

*'  And  so  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 
Sit  side  by  side,  full  summed  in  all  their  powers, 
Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be, 
Self-reverent  each  and  reverencing  each. 
Distinct  in  individuality, 
But  like  each  other,  even  as  those  who  love." 

The  dawn  of  the  modern  public-school  era 
was  clouded  by  a  discussion  which  threatened  to 
subvert  the  system  itself.  The  theological  dis- 
cussions which  had  raged  inVthe  early  part  of  the 
century,  with  the  breaking  up  of  the  old  churches. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL   SYSTEM.  229. 

had  left  everywhere  roots  of  bitterness.  Suspi-' 
cions  and  jealousy  were  rife,  and  so  inflammable 
was  the  atmosphere  that  a  spark  was  followed 
by  instantaneous  explosion.  The  air  was  lurid 
with  invectives  and  heavy  with  anathemas.  The 
attempt  of  the  Board  of  Education  to  revive  the 
public-school  interests  awakened  at  once  the  sus- 
picions and  aroused  the  hostility  of  large  num- 
bers of  the  influential  classes. 

These  people,  representing  various  religious 
bodies  called  evangelical,  saw  in  the  new  move- 
ments an  attempt  to  exclude  religion  from  the 
schools — to  secularize  them.  The  academies  had 
been  nurseries  of  religion  and  powerful  adjuncts 
of  the  established  faith.  The  public  schools 
themselves  had  been  largely  watched  over  by  the 
ministers,  and  in  earlier  days  had  given  to  re- 
ligious exercises  a  prominent  place.  The  legisla- 
tion which  inaugurated  the  new  era  giving  to  the 
town  committee  the  care  of  the .  school,  gave  to 
them  the  selection  of  books  for  school  use,  but 
forbade  the  use  of  sectarian  books.  This  was 
taken  as  a  declaration  of  intention  to  banish 
religion  from  the  schools,  and  on  this  issue  the 
people  divided. 

On  the  one  side  were  those  who  believed  tli^t 
religion  was  the  only  proper  foundation  of  tl\e 
education  of  the  young,  and  that  schools  fror 


230    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

wiLich  religious  exercises  were  excluded  were 
subversive  of  the  foundations  of  character  and 
of  the  social  and  public  weal.  On  the  other  side 
were  those  who  believed  that  among  a  people  of 
different  faiths  no  system  of  religious  instruction 
could  be  devised  which  should  not  be  offensive 
to  some ;  that  education  by  the  State  was  for  the 
State,  and  not  for  the  Church ;  and  that  it  was 
possible  to  provide  a  common  education  for  all, 
which,  while  it  cultivated  the  mind  and  promoted 
general  intelligence,  should  also  conduce  to  pri- 
vate and  public  virtue,  leaving  to  the  home  and 
the  Church  such  special  instruction  in  religious 
doctrines  as  parents  might  desire  for  their  chil- 
dren. 

In  the  heat  of  discussion  some  of  the  leading 
religious  papers  declared  that,  rather  than  omit 
religious  instruction  from  the  schools,  they  would 
give  up  the  public  schools  and  let  each  denomi- 
nation provide  for  the  training  of  the  children  of 
its  own  faith. 

While  this  discussion  was  going  on  a  new 
danger  appeared,  in  the  presence  of  which  the 
opposing  parties  ceased  their  wordy  conflict,  and, 
combining  their  forces  against  the  common  en- 
emy, solidified  public  opinion  in  support  of  the 
nonsectarian  public  school. 

The  tide  of  foreign  immigration  which  set  in 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  231 

with  increasing  force  after  the  unsuccessful  revo- 
lutionary movement  in  Europe  in  1848  produced 
everywhere  in  the  United  States  a  feeling  of  anx- 
iety and  alarm.  The  political  ascendency  gained 
by  foreign-born  citizens  in  New  York  city  inten- 
sified the  feeling,  and  the  attacks  of  the  Catholic 
Church  authorities  upon  the  public-school  system 
added  fuel  to  the  fire. 

An  intense  anti-foreign  and  anti-Catholic 
spirit  manifested  itself.  Organizing  itself  in 
secret  societies,  it  spread  over  the  country ;  min- 
gling patriotism  with  fanaticism,  it  revealed  it- 
self in  many  places  in  violence  and  outrage.  It 
entered  politics,  and,  breaking  down  the  old  party 
barriers,  swept  its  adherents  into  power  in  a  large 
number  of  States. 

The  attack  of  the  Church  upon  the  public 
schools  had  been  in  two  directions:  it  had  de- 
manded the  exclusion  of  the  Bible  as  a  secta- 
rian book,  and  it  had  claimed  a  share  of  the 
public-school  money  for  the  support  of  Church 
schools.  A  protracted  struggle  in  New  York 
city  had  resulted  in  maintaining  the  public- 
school  money  intact,  but  the  Bible  had  been  ex- 
pelled from  the  public  schools. 

In  1853,  in  several  States,  a  demand  was  made 
for  a  division  of  the  school  money.  It  was  no- 
where granted.    In  Massachusetts  an  amendment 


232    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

to  the  Constitution,*  approved  by  the  Legislatures 
of  1854  and  1855,  was  immediately  ratified  by  the 
people.  It  declared  that  money  raised  by  local 
tax  or  appropriated  by  the  State  for  schools 
should  only  be  expended  upon  public  schools; 
and  that  such  money  should  never  be  appropri- 
ated to  any  religious  sect  for  the  maintenance  of 
its  own  schools. 

The  Bible  question  was  settled  with  equal  sig- 
nificance and  conclusiveness,  f  Ins^ad  of  exclud- 
ing the  Bible,  its  reading,  which  had  been  only 
voluntary,  was  made  compulsory — daily  reading 
of  the  Bible  in  the  English  version  in  all  schools. 
Subsequent  statutes  J  modified  the  law  by  ex- 
empting children  whose  parents  might  have 
scruples  from  taking  part  in  the  exercise. 

At  the  time  of  these  discussions  Church 
schools  in  Massachusetts  were  few  and  small. 
The  first  of  ^hich  we  have  any  knowledge  were 
in  Lowell,  in/,  1834.  They  increased  but  slowly 
until  the  Baltimore  Council  in  1884,  which  de- 
clared it  to  be  the  policy  of  the  Catholic  Church 
\  to  educate  its  own  children  in  its  own  parish 
schools.  Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  rapid 
gain. 

*  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  Amendments,  Art.  XVIIL 

t  Acts  of  1855,  chap.  410. 

{  Acts  of  1862,  chap.  57;  1880,  chap.  176. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  233 

In  the  decade  from  1860  to  1870  the  increase 
in  attendance  on  these  schools  was  about  six 
hundred;  from  1870  to  1880,  eight  thousand; 
from  1880  to  1890,  twenty-eight  thousand.  The 
number  now  in  attendance  upon  the  parochial 
schools  is  10*6  per  cent  of  the  whole  school  at- 
tendance. 

While  the  isolation  of  even  this  portion  of  the 
school  population  is  to  be  regretted  for  their  own 
sakes — separated  thus  from  those  early  associa- 
tions in  work  and  play  by  which  the  individuals 
of  each  generation  become  affiliated  with  one 
another  in  youth,  prevented  thus  from  growing 
into  the  possession  of  those  common  thoughts 
and  purposes  which  mark  interests  common  and 
imply  one  people,  born  and  reared  and  molded 
into  a  sect  rather  than  into  a  nation — while  this 
is  a  misfortune  for  those  who  are  subjected  to 
it,  we  have  profound  reason  for  congratulation 
and  thankfulness  that  this  divisive  spirit  has 
gained  so  slight  a  hold  upon  the  people  of  our 
State.  It  is  most  significant  that,  notwithstand- 
ing the  conditions  of  society  have  been  most  fa- 
vorable to  private-school  interests,  during  the  last 
twenty  years  there  has  been  scarcely  any  percep- 
tible gain  in  the  ratio  of  private-school  attend- 
ance outside  the  parochial  schools — only  about 
one  fifth  of  one  per  cent.     This  is  a  most  conclu- 


234    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

sive  answer  to  the  statement  that  the  public 
schools  are  declining  in  popular  favor — a  state- 
ment usually  made  by  men  whose  wish  is  father 
to  the  thought. 

The  power  of  the  public-school  system  to 
mold  public  opinion  in  its  own  favor,  to  make 
friends  for  itself,  is  strikingly  exhibited  in  the 
changes  which  have  taken  place  since  1850 : 

The  population  has  gained  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  per  cent,  and  the  school  population 
has  gained  ninety-one  per  cent. 

The  publiC'School  attendance  has  gained  nine- 
ty-six per  cent. 

The  property  of  the  State  has  gained  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  per  cent. 

The  school  appropriation  has  gained  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty -one  per  cent. 

And  all  this  while  the  number  of  foreign-born 
persons  has  gained  three  hundred  per  cent,  and  is 
29*35  per  cent  of  the  whole  population,  while  the 
population  born  of  foreign-born  parents  is  fifty- 
six  per  cent. 

Year  by  year  these  people  of  Massachusetts — 
more  and  more  of  them  of  foreign  parentage — in 
their  town  meetings  and  their  city  councils  delib- 
erately tax  themselves  far  beyond  the  legal  re- 
quirements. That  this  is  true  is  the  strongest 
testimony  to  the  educating,  unifying,  American- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM.  235 

izing  influence  of  the  public  school,  and  the  most 
magnificent  tribute  to  it. 

To-day,  while  the  compulsory  law  requires 
towns  to  raise  three  dollars  for  each  child  of 
school  age,  they  voluntarily  raise  an  average  of 
twenty-four  dollars  and  sixty-seven  cents.  While 
they  must  keep  their  schools  open  six  months, 
they  do  voluntarily  keep  them  open  eight  and 
a  half  months. 

If  the  millions  of  dollars  of  to-day  represent 
less  of  value  than  the  four  hundred  pounds  which 
the  early  colonists  set  apart  for  Harvard  College, 
the  spirit  which  prompts  the  gift  is  still  the  same, 
and  we  realize  that  we  have  not  departed  so  far 
from  our  Puritan  antecedents  as  we  may  have 
feared;  so  we  thank  God  and  take  courage. 


ir 


LECTURE    VI. 

THE   MODERN  SCHOOL. 

In  that  wonderful  essay,  Levana  and  our 
Ladies  of  Sorrow,  you  will  recall  the  passage  in 
which  De  Quincey  hints  at  two  ideas  of  educa- 
tion :  one, ''  the  poor  machinery  of  spelling  books 
and  grammars'^;  the  other,  "that  mighty  system 
of  central  forces  hidden  in  the  deep  bosom  of  hu- 
man life,  which,  by  passion,  by  strife,  by  tempta- 
tion, by  the  energies  of  resistance,  works  forever 
upon  children,  resting  not  night  or  day  any  more 
than  the  mighty  wheels  of  day  and  night  them- 
selves; whose  moments,  like  spokes,  are  glim- 
mering forever  as  they  revolve/^ 

Something  like  this  distinction  is  suggested 
by  the  contrast  between  the  modern  school  and 
the  schools  which  we  have  been  considering. 
Not  every  existing  school  is  a  modern  school. 
Antediluvian  ideals  remain  under  postdiluvian 
conditions,  and  the  mediaeval  spirit  defies  the 
Renaissance.  The  modern  school  is  still  in  pro- 
cess of  evolution.     As  in  all  such  processes,  the 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  237" 

individuals  progress  unevenly:  some  slowly, 
some  rapidly ;  some  along  one  line,  some  another ; 
so  that  only  by  a  process  akin  to  composite  pho- 
tography can  we  get  an  idea  of  the  type.  When 
we  get  this  idea  we  find  that  the  modern  school  i 
has  become  differentiated  in  four  particulars  :  in 
purpose,  in  spirit,  in  studies,  in  methods  of  in- 
struction. 

The  purpose  of  the  earlier  schools  was  nar- 
row. To  instruct  in  the  arts  of  reading,  writing, 
and  casting  accounts,  was  all  that  the  elementa- 
ry schools  essayed  to  do.  The  grammar  schools 
added  a  knowledge  of  the  structure  of  Latin  and 
Greek.  In  more  recent  times,  as  new  studies 
were  added  to  the  school  curriculum — English 
gratnmar,  geography,  history,  in  the  lower 
schools,  and  the  new  sciences  in  the  academies 
and  high  schools — the  aim  was  still  to  impart 
knowledge ;  that  up  to  the  limit  of  opportunity 
the  student  might  be  learned.  To  store  the  mind 
was  the  teacher's  aim  and  the  pupil's  ambition. 
As  the  child  learned  in  infancy  to  repeat — 

"  How  doth  the  little  busy  bee 
Improve  each  shining  hour, 
And  gather  honey  all  the  day 
From  every  opening  flower," 

he  was  expected  to  find  in  the  verse  at  once 
analogy  and  incentive. 


238    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

I  Later,  under  the  mechanical  influences  oLtlie 
graded  system,  the  purpose  of  the  individual 
school  became  still  more  narrow :  to  furnish  a 
measured  quantity  of  knowledge ;  hence  of  meas- 
urable knowledge ;  to  fit  for  the  next  grade — 
grammar  school,  high  school,  college  ;  to  get  per 
cents  and  pass  examinations.  Through  this  stage 
most  schools  have  recently  passed.  Some  are 
still  in  it. 

The  modern  school  is  characterized  by  a  pur- 
pose as  broad  as  the  nature  of  the  child,  and  de- 
termined by  it.  Instead  of  seeing  in  the  boy  or 
girl  just  entering  the  primary  school  only  one 
more  to  be  registered,  and  put  through  a  half- 
dozen  reading  books,  two  or  three  arithmetics, 
and  a  couple  of  geographies,  and  then  turned  out 
done — instead  of  seeing  merely  a  child,  the  school 
sees  a  child  in  process  of  becoming  a  man,  and 
looking  beyond  the  present  it  inquires  what  de- 
mands the  future  will  make  upon  him  in  the 
complicated  relations  of  modern  life. 

It  sees  the  child  as  body,  mind,  and^soul,  and 
feels  responsibilities  for  each.  It  sees  the  mind, 
not  as  a  storehouse  to  be  filled,  not  as  Locke  saw 
it— a  blank  white  tablet  to  be  written  on— but 
a  sum  of  undeveloped  capacities  and  powers;  and 
finds  its  own  mission  to  be  to  direct  and  promote 
the  unfolding,  for  the  perfecting  of  each,  that 


THE  MODERN   SCHOOL.  239 

the  body  may  be  a  fit  instrument  for  the  mind ; 
the  mind  for  the  soul ;  that  the  man  may  be  full 
summed  in  all  his  powers,  or,  to  use  the  philo- 
sophic formula  of  the  day,  may  be  in  harmony 
with  his  environment. 

With  this  broader  purpose,  and  because  of  it, 
the  school  has  taken  on  a  new  spirit.  The  pre- 
vailing spirit  of  the  old  school  was  harsh,  repres- 
sive, repellent.  Wherever  the  light  of  litera- 
ture, in  fiction  or  in  poetry,  touches  the  school, 
it  gleams  luridly.  The  schoolmaster  is  impaled 
upon  the  pen  of  every  satirist ;  the  trident  is  no 
more  inseparable  from  the  conception  of  Neptune 
in  art,  nor  the  organ  from  the  pictures  of  Saint 
Cecilia,  than  is  the  rod  from  the  portrait  of  the 
schoolmaster. 

From  every  study  of  childhood,  in  biography 
or  tradition,  we  rise  with  the  exclamation  of 
Thackeray,  ^^  Poor  little  ancestors,  how  they 
were  flogged  !^^  School  government  was  re- 
garded as  a  necessary  evil:  it  was  to  hold  the 
child  down  while  he  could  be  operated  upon,  or 
to  head  him  off  whenever  he  obeyed  an  impulse 
of  Nature.  Rebellion  was  assumed  to  be  the 
natural  attitude  of  the  child's  mind,  and  the  first 
condition  of  success  in  education,  expressed  in  a 
phrase  which  suggests  the  rack  and  the  thumb- 
screw, was  to  "  break  the  child's  will." 


240    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Now  all  is  changed.  The  modern  school  be- 
lieves in  sunshine ;  it  seeks  first  to  be  cheerful ; 
the  birch  and  the  ferule  are  no  longer  conspic- 
uous schoolroom  ornaments — they  have  given 
place  to  pictures  and  flowers  and  running  vines, 
as  the  stocks  and  the  whipping-post  on  the 
village  green  have  given  way  to  the  memorial 
statue  and  the  fountain.  School  discipline  is  re- 
garded not  as  a  means  of  repressing  evil,  but  as 
an  essential  means  of  bringing  out  good.  The 
teacher  is  no  longer  merely  a  master,  a  task- 
setter,  an  examiner ;  but  he  is  an  educator,  using 
the  school  for  the  benefit  of  the  child,  that  by  its 
means  he  may  be  formed  as  well  as  informed. 

The  worlc  of  the  modern  school  is  so  new  that 
the  change  seems  more  like  revolution  than; 
evolution.  The  little  children  are  studying  form 
and  color,  modeling  in  clay,  constructing  in 
paper  and  wood;  all  are  drawing.  They  are 
learning  sewing,  cooking,  joinery,  wood-turning, 
and  carving.  They  are  studying  music,  not 
merely  to  sing  by  rote,  but  to  read  in  various 
keys  and  in  all  the  parts.  They  are  collecting, 
observing,  drawing,  describing,  preserving  i^lants, 
animals,  and  minerals.  They  are  studying  the 
^atural  forces  and  their  effects,  in  physics  and 
chemistry  and  meteorology. 

Looking  toward  citizenship  are  history,  civ- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  241 

ics,  and  various  spocial  exercises  to  develop  pa- 
triotism :  the  flag  over  the  schoolhouse  is  a  most 
significant  emblem  of  the  new  purpose  working 
itself  out  beneath.  Besides  all  this,  there  are 
the  humanizing  influences  of  literature ;  not  the 
Bible  of  the  colonial  schools — morels  the  pity ; 
not  the  set  pieces  of  elocutionary  fireworks  of 
the  later  school  readers,  but  choicest  classics  in 
their  entirety. 

^  This  broader  work  matches  the  broader  pur- 
pose and  grows  out  of  it.  These  studies  are  not 
ends  but  means.  By  them  powers  and  capacities 
are  revealed  and  increased  and  satisfied.  Right 
feelings  are  wakened,  tastes  are  cultivated,  the 
will  is  trained,  and  the  conscience  instructed. 
As  the  current  phrase  expresses  it,  "  the  whole 
child  is  put  to  school.''^ 

i  Lastly,  the  modern  school  is  known  by  its 
methods  of  instruction.  These,  too,  are  in  har- 
mony with  its  purpose — the  all-round  develop- 
ment of  the  child.  To  set  a  task  in  geography  or 
arithmetic,  to  see  that  it  is  learned  and  remem- 
bered, was  one  thing ;  to  use  these  studies  to 
train  the  child  to  observe,  to  imagine,  to  reason, 
to  express,  to  feel,  to  Will,  is  another  and  a  very 
different  thing.  One  principle  underlies  all  the 
work  and  determines  all  the  method— things,  not 
signs  for  things,  al'e  the  true  source  of  knowl- 


242    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

edge;  the  true  educing  forces.  Objects,  facts, 
phenomena  are  observed,  compared,  classified, 
related.  Analysis  and  induction  are  used  as  a 
means  of  training.  In  all  these  ways  and  by  all 
these  means  the  school  seeks  to  develop  the 
active  powers  and  to  attain  the  great  end — self- 
education;  believing,  with  Sandy  Mackaye  in 
Alton  Locke,  "A  mon  kens  only  what  he  has 
learned  hissel.^^ 

/  Such  being  the  salient  features  of  the  modern 
''school,  we  turn  to  ask  to  what  influences  they 
are  due;  in  what  order  and  by  what  agencies 
they  have  been  evolved.  The  influences  have 
been  of  two  kinds,  general  and  individual.  The 
more  kindly  spirit  in  the  schools  is  a  feature  of 
the  age.  There  is  more  sympathy  with  suffer- 
ing, more  pity  for  misery,  more  charity  for  sin. 
Much  of  this  doubtless  is  mere  sentiment — a 
fastidious  niceness  that  would  have  no  ^'  slovenly, 
unhandsome  corse  betwixt  the  wind  and  its  no- 
bility '' — but  that  there  is  something  deeper  and 
more  real  is  proved  by  every  Eed  Cross  and 
White  Ribbon,  by  every  Toynbee  Hall  and  An- 
dover  House,  by  every  King^s  Daughter  and 
Humane  Society  and  Rescue  Mission  the  world 
over. 

The  scientific  spirit  of  the  age,  too,  has  had 
its  influence  in  the  schools.    That  keen-visioned 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  243 

search  for  truth,  ever  doubting,  ever  questioning, 
submitting  all  things  to  crucial  tests,  the  tardy 
but  glorious  fruitage  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
sage  of  Verulam,  is  all  the  time  molding  courses 
and  methods  of  study. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  century  elementary 
schools  were  much  alike  in  Germany,  Holland, 
England,  Scotland,  and  the  United  States.  Low 
ideals,  narrow  range  of  instruction,  incompetent 
teachers,  public  apathy  were  general. 

Unquestionably  the  first  effective  impulse  to 
move  the  schools  out  of  the  slough  came  from 
Pestalozzi.  Men  before  him  had  philosophized 
wisely  about  education,  but  he  illustrated  his 
philosophy  by  his  practice,  and  was  fortunate 
enough  in  the  time  and  place  of  his  experiments 
to  attract  universal  attention  and  to  gather  about 
him  a  body  of  disciples  who  could  preach  and 
practice  his  doctrines  even  more  successfully 
than  he  could  do  it  himself.  Thus  he  multiplied 
himself  in  his  followers  until  all  the  world  felt 
his  influence. 

It  is  true  that  his  own  practice  was  crude,  full 
of  errors  and  failures,  but  his  life  was  a  grand 
success.  He  broke  the  chains  for  all  earnest 
school  teachers,  and  let  in  the  sunshine  on  the 
pathway  of  childhood.  He  discovered  the  true 
functions  of    school  education — to  develop  the 


244:    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

child  in  the  line  of  his  natural  powers  and  in  the 
order  of  their  development ;  and  he  saw,  too,  in 
some  degree  the  true  relations  of  studies  to  this 
end.  In  his  work  language,  form  and  number, 
music  and  drawing  were  means  for  exercising 
the  faculties  of  the  child,  and  the  teacher's  work 
was  with  the  child  and  not  on  him ;  for  the  child 
was  neither  a  reservoir  to  be  filled,  nor  a  block 
of  marble  to  be  carved,  nor  a  mass  of  clay  to  be 
molded. 

If  we  examine  his  doctrines  and  practice 
in  detail  we  shall  find  in  them  all  those  feat- 
ures which  characterize  the  modern  school — 
the  broad  purpose,  the  gentle^  and  kindly  spirit, 
the  various  studies  used  as  means,  the  natural 
methods. 

Another  powerful  impulse  has  come  more  re- 
cently from  Froebel.  In  the  same  direction  as 
Pestalozzianism,  it  goes  much  further  and  strikes 
much  deeper.  It  makes  more  of  the  moral  and 
religious  side  of  education.  Studying  more  spe- 
cifically the  relations  of  life — domestic,  social, 
civil — it  seeks  to  prepare  for  them  all  by  a  care- 
ful system  of  child  nurture,  making  much  of  the 
creative  and  imitative  faculties,  and  providing 
the  child  from  the  earliest  infancy  with  a  favor- 
able environment. 

Herbert  Spencer,  too,  has  had  considerable  in- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  245 

fluence  in  modifying  the  courses  of  study,  and  to 
some  extent  the  methods  of  instruction.  His  in- 
fluence must  be  counted  on  both  the  progressive 
and  the  conservative  side ;  progressive,  in  that  he 
advocated  the  study  of  modern  science ;  conserv- 
tive,  in  that  he  reiterated  the  ancient  dogma — 
knowledge  is  power.  The  so-called  practical  the- 
ory of  education,  which  believes  in  giving  to 
children  that  knowledge  and  that  only  which 
they  can  put  to  immediate  use  in  bread-winning, 
has  found  in  Spencer  its  most  powerful  expositor 
and  advocate. 

In  our  study  of  Horace  Mann  and  his  coadju- 
tors we  saw  how  closely  the  revival  of  interest 
in  the  common  schools  in  Massachusetts  was  re- 
lated to  the  reorganization  of  the  common-school 
systems  of  Prussia  and  Holland.  Into  these 
schools  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  Pestalozzi 
had  been  wrought  by  men  who  learned  them  as 
his  disciples. 

To  this  fact  is  due  whatever  superiority  the 
elementary  schools  of  Germany  have  over  those 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  latest  movements, 
there  as  here,  received  their  impulse  from  the 
same  source,  for  Froebel  and  Herbart  were  both 
students  under  Pestalozzi. 

The  doctrines  and  practices  of  Pestalozzi  early 
and  profoundly  impressed  American  observers. 


246    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM. 

Cousin^s  Reports  were  widely  read ;  the  American 
Reports  of  Stowe,  Bache,  Mann,  and  Barnard 
deepened  the  impression.  Woodbridge,  in  his 
Journal  of  Education,  kept  the  new  education 
steadily  before  his  readers.  Colburn's  Arithmetic 
(1823)  was  wholly  Pestalozzian. 

Private-school  men  early  threw  themselves 
into  the  new  movement.  William  B.  Fowle  in 
the  monitorial  school,  William  Russell  at  Lan- 
caster, Gideon  F.  Thayer  in  the  Chauncey  Hall 
School,  George  B.  Emerson  in  his  young  ladies* 
school,  the  Alcotts  in  their  teaching — were  all 
apostles  of  the  new  education.  With  Russell 
was  associated  for  a  time  Hermann  Kriisi,  son 
of  that  Kriisi  who  had  been  Pestalozzi's  asso- 
ciate at  Iverdun,  and  himself  trained  as  pupil 
and  teacher  in  his  father's  normal  school  at 
Gais. 

Considerable  impulse  toward  reform  came 
from  the  lectures  and  writings  of  George  Combe, 
who  visited  this  country  in  1838  and  formed  last- 
ing friendship  with  most  of  the  progressive  men 
and  women  of  the  time.  Coming  just  when  the 
new  spirit  was  working  most  powerfully,  he 
found  in  Mr.  Mann  a  warm  personal  friend  and 
a  loyal  disciple,  and  through  him  influenced  the 
whole  State.  It  is  probable  that  the  introduction 
of  physiology  and  hygiene  in  the  common-school 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  247 

curriculum  as  an  optional  study,  in  1850/  was 
due  to  this  influence. 

Aside  from  the  efforts  of  these  individuals, 
the  normal  schools  stand  forth  pre-eminent 
among  the  agencies  by  which  the  schools  have 
become  modernized.  From  their  beginning,  the 
three  Massachusetts  schools — Framingham,  West- 
field,  and  Bridgewater — stood  for  progress  along 
the  lines  already  specified.  While  they  have 
taught  the  same  branches  of  knowledge  as  the 
academies,  they  taught  them  for  a  different  pur- 
pose and  in  a  different  way. 

Superficial  critics,  from  that  day  to  this,  have 
found  fault  with  the  normal  schools  for  teaching 
subjects — calling  such  work  academic  and  not 
professional;  but  the  difference  between  the 
study  of  subjects — say  arithmetic — in  the  nor- 
mal schools  and  elsewhere,  has  been  the  differ- 
ence between  the  old  school  and  the  new. 

Outside  the  normal  school  arithmetic  was 
studied  that  the  student  might  know  enough  of 
it  for  his  personal  use  in  the  affairs  of  life;  in 
the  normal  school  it  was  so  taught  that  the  stu- 
dent might  know  it  and  use  it  as  an  instrument 
in  training  children  to  think.  So  the  normal 
student  came  to  know  arithmetic,  not  merely  in 

*  Acts  of  1850,  chap.  229. 


248    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SGHOOL  SYSTEM. 

its  technique,  but  in  its  principles ;  not  merely  aS 
a  means  of  solving  problems,  but  as  a  means  of 
teaching  children. 

In  the  normal  schools,  too,  the  true  principles 
of  school  government  were  unfolded  and  the 
highest  motives  to  conduct  presented.  Day  by 
day  the  pupils  of  Father  Pierce  at  West  ISTewton 
and  at  Framingham  heard  his  sublime  injunc- 
tion, "  Live  the  truth ! " 

Natural  methods  of  instruction  found,  too,  in 
the  normal  school  their  most  complete  exemplifi- 
cation. The  abundant  use  of  objective  illustra- 
tion and  oral  instruction  were  characteristic  fea- 
tures. The  fundamental  principle  of  the  new- 
education  was  that  education  was  development ; 
the  work  of  the  school  was  to  supply  the  condi- 
tions for  the  unfolding  of  faculties — in  the  ordei!' 
of  Nature.  It  early  became  evident  that  the 
study  of  mind  must  underlie  all  successful  edu- 
cational theory  and  practice,  and  the  normal 
schools  set  about  the  teaching  of  psychology^ 
that  the  teachers  whom  they  were  training  might 
work  not  empirically  but  from  principle  and  in- 
telligently. 

The  first  three  normal  schools  were  estab- 
lished, as  we  have  seen,  in  1839  and  1840.  Theif 
early  graduates  encountered  almost  everywhere 
prejudice  and  suspicion,  in  many  cases  active  and 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  249 

persistent,  sometimes  malignant  opposition ;  but 
steadily,  year  by  year,  they  fixed  themselves 
more  and  more  firmly  in  public  estimation  and 
support.  Each  normal  graduate  who  succeeded 
created  a  demand  for  more,  and  during  their  en- 
tire history  there  has  not  been  a  year  when  the  de- 
mand has  not  exceeded  the  supply.  At  different 
times  testimony  has  been  called  for,  from  school 
authorities,  as  to  their  success.  The  weight  of 
this  testimony  is  to  the  effect  that  through  the 
influence  of  these  teachers  better  methods  of 
teaching  have  been  introduced,  milder  forms  of 
government,  more  salutary  influences  upon  char- 
acter, and  that  indirectly  they  have  raised  the 
standard  for  all  teachers,  and  so  elevated  more 
schools  than  they  have  taught.  Especially  note- 
worthy is  the  testimony  that  the  normal  gradu- 
ates exhibited  a  professional  enthusiasm  hitherto 
almost  unknown,  and  that  this  spirit  being  con- 
tagious had  elevated  the  whole  body  of  teachers. 
So  satisfactory  had  the  work  of  the  pioneer 
schools  been  that  in  answer  to  a  popular  demand, 
in  1854,  a  fourth  school  was  opened  in  Salem,  and 
twenty  years  later  a  fifth  school  in  Worcester. 
Working  with  these  State  schools  has  been  the 
Boston  City  Normal  School.* 

*  The  legislature  of  1894  has  authorized  the  establishment 
of  four  more  State  normal  schools. 


250    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Side  by  side  with  the  normal  schools  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  co-operating  with  them  in  the 
modernizing  of  common-school  education  through 
the  principles  of  Pestalozzi,  stood  the  Normal 
School  of  Oswego,  New  York,  where  object  teach- 
ing was  first  specialized  under  Pestalozzian  prin- 
ciples in  1861,  when  Miss  E.  M.  Jones  was  brought 
from  the  Home  and  Colonial  Society  of  London 
to  open  a  City  Training  School.  The  next  year 
Kriisi  became  connected  with  the  school,  and 
spent  twenty-five  years  in  developing  Pestalozzi's 
theories.  The  school  has  sent  its  graduates  over 
all  the  land,  and  has  perhaps  as  much  as  any 
other  single  institution  helped  to  mold  American 
schools. 

While  we  are  indebted  chiefly  to  the  normal 
schools  for  modifying  the  spirit  and  methods  of 
public  instruction,  their  work  was  done  almost 
entirely  on  the  traditional  lines.  That  broaden- 
ing of  the  course  of  study,  which  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous feature  of  the  modern  school,  and  the 
incorporation  of  the  doctrines  of  Froebel  into  the 
current  school  philosophy  have  proceeded  from 
other  sources. 

The  first  wide  departure  from  the  conven- 
tional standards  of  school  work  was  in  the  com- 
pulsory introduction  of  drawing.  Following 
closely  upon  this  came  the  miscellaneous  work 


THE   MODERN  SCHOOL.  251 

grouped  around  the  title  "manual  training/^ 
The  impulse  to  both  of  these  came  from  the 
Paris  Exposition  of  1867.  At  the  World's  Fair 
in  London  in  1851  England  led  in  nearly  all 
departments  of  manufactures.  Yet  there  were  a 
few  in  which  Continental  nations  excelled.  The 
superiority  of  these  was  chiefly  in  beauty  of  de- 
sign ;  the  products  were  artistic  as  well  as  useful. 
Schools  of  design  were  immediately  established, 
and  the  South  Kensington  Museum  founded,  and 
the  influence  of  these  was  speedily  felt. 

But  the  Continental  countries  had  learned 
more  than  they  had  taught,  and  in  1867  Eng- 
land was  in  the  rear  even  in  her  own  special- 
ties. Commissioners  appointed  to  search  for  the 
causes  of  this  relative  decline  agreed  that  the 
chief  cause  was  the  splendid  industrial  train- 
ing which  France,  Belgium,  Switzerland,  and 
Austria  had  incorporated  into  their  educational 
systems.  Drawing  had  been  made  a  universal 
study  in  the  elementary  schools,  and  upon  this 
foundation  had  been  built  the  most  thorough 
and  comprehensive  system  of  technical  instruc- 
tion, reaching  all  kinds  of  industries,  and  provid- 
ing intelligent  workmen  and  accomplished  fore- 
men and  superintendents. 

England  took  the  lesson  to  heart.  The  imme- 
diate outcome  there  was  the  National  Schools 
18 


252    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

Act  of  1870.  American  manufacturers  learned 
tlie  same  lesson,  and  with  characteristic  prompt- 
ness and  energy  set  about  the  work  of  raising  the 
educational  standard  at  home.  In  1869  the  Low- 
ells, the  Lawrences,  the  Bigelows,  and  others, 
setting  forth  the  lack  of  skilled  native  workmen, 
and  the  necessity  of  importing  designers  and 
foremen  for  all  the  higher  classes  of  manufac- 
tures, petitioned  the  Legislature  to  consider 
means  of  providing  instruction  in  industrial  and 
mechanical  drawing.* 

Drawing  had  been  made  an  optional  study  in 
1858,  chiefly  through  the  influence  of  Kriisi,  who 
had  taught  it  for  several  years  in  the  Teachers' 
Institutes.  But  nothing  of  value  had  been  done. 
Now,  in  1870,f  drawing  was  made  a  regular  study 
in  all  the  public  schools.  Besides  this,  evening 
drawing  schools  were  required  in  all  the  larger 
towns.  This  requirement  was  immediately  acted 
on,  and  schools  were  opened,  to  which  men  and 
women  from  all  the  leading  industries  flocked, 
eager  to  avail  themselves  of  the  new  opportunity. 

The  attempt  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the 
new  law  in  the  public  schools  met  at  once  with 

*  For  initiatory  steps  in  introduction  of  industrial  drawing, 
see  Thirty-fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Education,  p.  163. 

t  Acts  of  1870,  chap.  248. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  253 

an  insuperable  obstacle — there  were  no  teachers, 
and  there  was  no  one  to  teach  the  teachers.  To 
obviate  this  difficulty  the  city  of  Boston  sought 
a  leader  in  South  Kensington,  and  finding  there 
Mr.  Walter  Smith,  made  him  Art  Director  for 
the  city.  The  State  co-operated  with  the  city, 
and  employed  him  as  Art  Director.  The  State 
also  established  a  Normal  Art  School,  and  placed 
Mr.  Smith  at  its  head.  Subsequently  the  Board 
of  Education  employed  a  special  agent  to  super- 
vise the  drawing  in  the  State.  By  means  of 
these  agencies  the  work  in  drawing  has  been 
put  upon  a  substantial  footing,  and  is  already 
bearing  fruit  in  some  of  the  leading  industries. 

Thus  the  foundation  of  a  system  of  industrial 
education  has  been  laid ;  but  after  twenty  years 
of  agitation  and  effort,  everything  beyond  this 
— even  where  the  most  has  been  done — is  still 
matter  of  experiment  and  uncertainty. 

In  deference  to  the  wishes  of  the  friends  of 
this  work,  following  its  usual  custom,  the  Legis- 
lature in  1872  *  granted  permission  to  the  towns  to 
support  free  industrial  schools.  Various  private 
associations  and  individuals  in  a  tentative  way 
early  began  to  experiment  in  furnishing  instruc- 
tion in  some  form  of  wood-working ;  a  little  crude 

*  Acts  of  1872,  chap.  86. 


254    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

experimenting  was  done  in  the  same  line  in  con- 
nection with,  public-school  work.* 

Now  wood-working  in  a  systematic  form  en- 
ters into  the  regular  school  work  of  Boston  and 
several  other  cities  and  towns.  Sewing  has  been 
quite  generally  introduced  into  the  city  schools, 
and  more  recently  instruction  in  cooking  has 
been  added  to  the  curriculum.  A  beginning  has 
been  made  in  Springfield,  Cambridge,  and  Boston 
to  furnish  more  advanced  instruction  in  wood 
and  metal  working.  But  as  yet  neither  State  nor 
municipalities  have  undertaken  to  furnish  in  any 
large  and  generous  and  intelligent  way  such  op- 
portunities for  technical  culture  as  all  the  great 
centers  of  England  and  Europe  have  been  main- 
taining for  years. 

While  for  twenty  years  the  idea  of  industrial 
education  has  been  slowly  permeating  society,  the 
doctrines  of  Froebel  have  been  even  longer  in  get- 
ting themselves  formally  recognized  in  public- 
school  work.  The  concrete  embodiment — that  is, 
the  kindergarten  as  an  institution — is  just  begin- 
ning to  exist  as  a  part  of  the  public-school  sys- 
tem. And  yet  the  kindergarten  has  been  before 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  for  more  than  thirty 
years — the  lifetime  of  a  generation. 

*  Forty-fourth  Report  of  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education, 
pp.  179-186 ;  Forty-sixth  Report,  pp.  217-223. 


THE   MODERN  SCHOOL.  255 

I  The  apostle  of  the  kindergarten  movement  in 
Massachusetts  was  Miss  Elizaj3eth_P._Peabody, 
and  to  her  efforts,  with  tongue  and  pen,  is  due 
whatever  success  the  movement  has  had.  Her  own 
kindergarten — the  first  in  Boston,  in  1860 — was 
soon  followed  by  others  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  They  were  all  private,  and  patronized 
chiefly  by  families  of  means,  who  preferred  them 
to  the  old-fashioned  dame-school  or  the  public 
primary  school. 

It  was  soon  apparent  to  Miss  Peabody  that 
these  schools  were  kindergartens  chiefly  in  name ; 
with  a  few  of  the  externals,  they  lacked  the  spirit 
of  Froebel's  institution.  She  went  to  Germany, 
and  studied  the  system  in  its  home,  and  came 
back  to  begin  the  work  anew.  Trained  kinder- 
gar  tners  came  from  Europe  and  opened  training 
schools  here,  and  the  work  entered  upon  its  sec- 
ond and  much  higher  stage.* 

In  1877  Mrs.  Quincy  A.  Shaw  opened  kinder- 
gartens for  the  poor  as  a  private  charity.  The 
number  of  these  was  gradually  increased  until,  in 
1888,  she  was  supporting  fourteen  of  them  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  city.  In  that  year  the  city 
adopted  them  as  a  part  of  its  public-school  sys- 

*  In  1870  a  public  free  kindergarten  was  opened  in  Boston 
under  the  direction  of  the  school  committee.  It  was  maintained 
for  nine  years. 


256     MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

tern,  and  now  there  are  in  Boston  forty-eight 
public  kindergartens. 

While  the  kindergarten  itself  as  an  institu- 
tion— even  now — is  a  very  small  fraction  of  the 
public-school  system,  its  principles  and  its  phi- 
losophy have  indirectly  and  profoundly  affected 
public-school  instruction.  The  closer  relation  of 
the  teachers  to  the  children  and  of  the  children 
to  each  other — simulating  the  family — the  varied, 
pleasing,  and  at  the  same  time  purposeful  and 
educational  activity  shown  in  the  kindergarten, 
have  become  characteristic  of  the  modern  pri- 
mary school. 

The  early  primary  school  was  once  portrayed 
in  a  Boston  school  report :  "  It  looked  like  an  ill- 
regulated  nursery,  where  the  morning  duties  of 
the  children  in  the  way  of  washing,  combing, 
and  dressing  had  been  imperfectly  performed, 
and  the  children  sent  to  one  room  as  a  safe 
place  of  detention.  In  the  countenance  of  both 
teacher  and  pupils  there  was  but  one  expression 
— 'What  a  weariness  it  is!'  The  children  sat 
in  the  small  yellow  chairs,  swaying  their  little 
bodies  to  and  fro  from  mere  listlessness ;  and 
whenever  they  could  escape  the  eye  of  the 
teacher,  breaking  the  laws  of  the  school  by 
obeying  the  laws  of  Nature,  constantly  offend- 
ing but  never  feeling  guilty,  the  teacher  mean- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  257 

while,  by  snatches  and  amid  continued  interrup- 
tions, hearing  the  alphabet  class,  the  spelling 
class,  and  the  reading  class  in  a  drawling  and 
weary  manner.  There  were  two  cheerful  mo- 
ments in  the  day — those  when  the  children 
escaped  from  the  schoolhouse ;  and  when  the 
teacher  left  the  door  she  could  hardly  have 
known  in  the  eager  looks  and  joyous  voices  of 
the  little  crowd  the  listless  and  weary  children 
of  the  half  hour  before/' 

The  transformation  of  the  primary  school  be- 

/gan  with  the  Pestalozzian  influence,  but  the  most 
radical  and  far-reaching  impulse  has  come  from 
Fro^bel  through  the  kindergarten. 

Another  most  interesting  phase  of  the  same 
subject  is  the  influence  of  the  kindergarten  upon 
the  work  in  drawing  and  the  manual  arts.  The 
drawing  work,  as  originally  planned,  had  for  its 
primary  and  specific  end  to  prepare  mechanics  to 
make  and  to  read  working-drawings  and  to  culti- 
vate taste  and  skill  in  industrial  design.  Other 
results  were  secondary.  The  motive  was  purely 
practical  in  its  character. 

From  the  new  philosophy  came  the  idea  of 
drawing  as  an  educational  instrument,  as  a 
means  of  expression  of  conceptions  of  form,  as 
only  a  part  of  a  more  extended  whole.  This 
notion   superinduced  upon  the   original  one  has 


258    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

wholly  changed  the  drawing  in  all  the  elemen- 
tary schools.  It  begins  earlier — begins  with  form 
study;  uses  modeling  in  clay  as  an  adjunct; 
draws  into  its  service  the  kindergarten  occupa- 
tions of  stick-laying  and  paper  folding  and  cut- 
ting, and  makes  itself  attractive  with  color.  It 
is  also  itself  made  to  do  service  in  illustrating 
almost  all  subjects  in  the  school  courses — geog- 
raphy, history,  literature,  and  natural  science. 
Persons  not  familiar  with  school  work  can  not 
know  how  far-reaching  this  work  is  as  an  ele- 
ment of  public  education. 

But  the  influence  of  the  kindergarten  upon 
the  development  of  technical  education  has  been 
less  favorable.  In  the  early  advocacy  of  the  in- 
dustrial movement  two  motives  were  apparent. 
Men  interested  in  the  mechanic  arts  and  in  build- 
ing up  manufacturing  industries  wanted  skilled 
workmen,  and  they  wanted  schools  to  train  them 
in.  The  end  was  clearly  in  view,  and  the  way  to 
it  was  plain  and  straight.  Besides  this  purely 
practical  motive,  there  was  a  pseudo-philan- 
thropy, which  feared  that  the  lower  classes 
would  not  properly  appreciate  the  dignity  of 
manual  labor — that  they  would  look  away  to  the 
cleaner  hands  and  better  clothes  and  shorter 
hours  which  seemed  to  belong  to  literary  and 
professional  and  commercial  life.     Something  be- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  259 

sides  the  traditional  work  of  the  schools  seemed 
necessary  to  fit  these  people  for  their  sphere  and 
to  keep  them  in  it. 

From  the  kindergarten  came  another  motive. 
Man  is  a  creative  animal,  and  it  is  the  business 
of  education  to  furnish  him,  throughout  his 
school  life,  with  opportunity  for  this  creative 
instinct  to  develop  itself.  Solely  from  subjec- 
tive motive,  and  without  reference  to  any  prac- 
tical end,  every  child  should  be  taught  to  use  his 
hands. 

These  two  motives  have  been  playing  seesaw 
with  each  other  for  years.  !N"ow  one  has  been  up, 
now  the  other.  They  have  not  yet  been  harmon- 
ized. One  is  reminded  of  a  phrase  used  by  the 
historian  Mommsen,  in  describing  Pompey  the 
Great:  '"He  passed  his  life  away  in  a  state  of 
perpetual  inward  contradiction.^^  Meanwhile  the 
work  waits.  The  people  could  understand  the 
practical  motive,  and  might  respond  to  it  in  a 
practical  way.  They  knew  little  and  cared  little 
about  the  more  abstruse  theory.  An  industrial 
educational  system  directed  to  practical  ends, 
broad  in  its  scope  and  complete  in  its  details,  and 
adapted  to  American  needs,  we  have  not  yet  at- 
tained. 

In  discussing  the  agencies  by  which  the  mod- 
ern evolutionary  processes  have  been  hastened. 


260    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

we  have  spoken  of  individuals  and  of  the  normal 
schools.  There  are  others  deserving  of  mention. 
y^^ !  The  Board  of  Education  has  also  had  a  powerful 
uplifting  and  broadening  influence.  People  in 
States  where  the  educational  system  is  more  cen- 
tralized are  fond  of  sneering  at  the  Massachusetts 
Board  of  Education  because  it  has  so  little  com- 
pulsory authority.  These  people  have  not  learned 
the  first  lesson  of  the  civics  of  a  free  State — that 
the  hidings  of  its  power  are  not  in  law,  but  in 
the  sentiments  and  impulses  of  its  people.  Quiet- 
ly but  steadily,  for  fifty-four  years  the  Board  of 
Education  has  been  using  the  means  at  its  com- 
mand to  enlighten  the  people  of  the  State  con- 
cerning what  they  ought  to  do  and  how  they 
ought  to  do  it. 

Under  the  blighting  influences  of  the  private 
schools,  the  board  had  first  to  create  a  public- 
school  spirit;  then  it  had  to  foster  it;  more  re- 
cently, to  meet  the  malign  influences  of  sectari- 
anisms, it  has  had  to  intensify  it. 

Among  its  members  have  been  men  of  all  pro- 
fessions, whom  Massachusetts  has  delighted  to 
honor,  and  who  have  earned  its  homage  by  their 
work  and  their  services:  publicists — Briggs, 
Boutwell,  Washburn,  Walker,  Adams;  literary 
men — Sparks,  Higginson,  Scudder;  clergymen — 
Chapin,  Hooker,  Clarke,  Miner,  Brooks ;  public- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  261 

school  men — Mann,  Emerson,  Philbrick  ;  coUego 
men — Sears,  Hopkins,  Seelye,  Stearns,  Felton, 
Marshall,  Capen. 

Through  its  annual  reports  and  those  of  its 
Secretary  it  has  put  before  school  officers  the 
most  advanced  opinions  of  educational  theory 
and  practice.  Through  its  institutes  it  has  pre- 
sented these  theories  in  the  concrete,  and  thus 
afforded  to  teachers  everywhere  object  lessons  in 
the  application  of  approved  methods.  Through 
its  Agents — practical  school  men — it  has  pene- 
trated every  town  and  every  school  district, 
discovering  weaknesses  and  excellences,  reveal- 
ing to  teachers  and  committees  and  parents 
their  own  shortcomings — criticising,  condemn- 
ing, counseling,  awakening,  encouraging. 

In  no  other  State  in  the  Union  is  the  condi- 
tion of  the  entire  public-school  system  so  trans- 
parent to  the  central  authority  as  in  Massachu- 
setts. The  Board  of  Education  can  by  asking  its 
Agents  have  by  return  mail  a  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  the  most  obscure  school,  its  numbers,  its 
house,  its  teacher,  its  work — a  photograph  taken 
within  two  years  and  in  the  Agent's  note-book. 

Under  the  steady  pressure  of  this  influence, 
without  compulsory  authority,  school  attendance 
has  become  more  regular,  school  buildings  have 
become  brighter  and  safer  for  body  and  soul. 


262    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

school  books  and  helps  have  become  plentier  and 
better,  school  teachers  have  become  kinder  and 
wiser,  school  committees  broader,  and  the  school 
public  more  intelligent  and  more  generous.  Old 
things  have  passed  away,  and  some  if  not  all 
things  have  become  new.  Besides  all  this,  the 
board  has  been  almost  the  sole  instrumentality 
in  securing  helpful  legislation  and  in  protecting 
the  school  from  hostile  enactments. 

It  has  done  all  this  work  quietly,  with  single- 
ness of  purpose  and  without  ostentation,  sound- 
ing no  trumpet  before  its  acts  of  beneficence — as 
the  hypocrites  do — it  has  sought  to  realize  Hor- 
ace Mann's  ideal  of  the  common  school — ^'  a  free, 
straight,  solid  pathway,  by  which  every  child  of 
the  Commonwealth  could  walk  directly  up  from* 
the  ignorance  of  an  infant  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
primary  duties  of  a  man,  and  could  acquire  a 
power  and  an  invincible  will  to  discharge  them.'' 

The  Board  of  Education  and  the  normal  schools 
have  found  earnest  coadjutors  among  the  teachers 
themselves  as  organized  into^  associations.  The 
American  Institute  of  Instruction,  established  in 
1830,  was  immediately  followed  by  the  Essex 
County  Association,  and  this  by  other  county 
organizations  and  by  the  State  Association.  In 
more  recent  years  numerous  bodies  of  specialists 
have  been  organized. 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  263 

In  1848  the  Commonwealth,  in  a  way,  adopted 
the  State  and  County  Associations  into  its  school 
system  by  giving  them  annual  grants  of  money. 
In  the  meetings  of  these  associations  the  new  and 
the  old  have  met  and  contended  in  free  discus- 
sion— new  theories,  new  methods,  new  devices. 
Orthodoxy  has  clashed  with  heterodoxy  until 
the  sparks  flew,  to  the  confusion  of  the  weak  and 
the  perplexity  of  the  wise.  Cranks  and  mounte- 
banks have  disported  themselves,  to  the  grief  of 
the  judicious  and  the  alarm  of  the  timid.  But 
out  of  it  all  has  come  progress,  and  these  associa- 
tions are  to-day  potent  instrumentalities  in  the 
current  evolutionary  processes. 
1/  There  is  an  educational  literature,  too,  which 
ris  on  the  whole  making  for  righteousness.  This 
is  the  most  modern  force.  Twenty-five  years  ago 
books  on  education  were  rare  and  periodicals 
were  few  and  their  circulation  insignificant. 
Now  a  public-school  teacher  who  is  not  a  sub- 
scriber to  some  educational  periodical  is  looked 
upon  askance  by  school  ofl&cials.  Teachers^  li- 
braries are  common,  and  teachers^  reading  circles 
have  covered  whole  States.  It  is  rare  to  find  a 
schoolroom  desk  without  some  books  on  edu- 
cational theory  or  practice.  Public  school  teach- 
ers in  Massachusetts  are  studying  their  work  as 
never  before. 


264    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

I  turn  now  to  review  the  path  along  which  we 
have  come.  Standing  by  the  side  of  the  sources 
of  our  educational  institutions,  we  find  ourselves 
among  a  people  who  partook  in  the  fullest  meas- 
ure of  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Ref- 
ormation, who  had  imbibed  the  sentiments  of 
Luther  and  Calvin  and  Knox  and  Cranmer,  who 
believed  that  religion  was  the  supreme  affair  of 
man  and  that  learning  was  its  handmaid.  As  an 
enduring  testimonial  to  their  belief  that  the  so- 
cial and  civil  welfare  of  the  new  community  was 
inextricably  interwoven  with  its  spiritual  life, 
they  built  a  church  in  the  midst  of  their  homes, 
and  planted  a  school  beside  it  or  within  it. 

Their  aim  was  to  have  every  child  so  in- 
structed and  trained  that  he  should  on  the  one 
side  be  a  self-supporting  member  of  the  commu- 
nity and  an  intelligent  participator  in  social  and 
civil  affairs,  and  on  the  other  that  he  should  be 
a  loyal  subject  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  These 
people  lived  always  in  sight  and  in  thought  of 
two  worlds,  and  their  history  has  proved  that  to 
give  a  large  share  of  interest  to  spiritual  things 
by  no  means  impedes  material  progress,  illustrat- 
ing Coleridge's  saying,  "Celestial  observations 
are  necessary,  even  to  make  terrestrial  charts  ac- 
curate."' 

So  believing,  they  coupled  in  their  earliest  de- 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  265 

cree  for  the  bringing  up  of  their  youth,  "  learn- 
ing and  labor/^  and  they  included  in  the  learning 
"  the  capital  laws  and  the  principles  of  religion/^ 
That  was  a  wonderfully  comprehensive  scheme 
for  the  time  and  place. 

As  we  follow  the  course  of  events,  we  observe 
that  throughout  the  history  the  Legislature  has 
been  the  efficient  instrument  in  holding  up  the 
standards  and  unifying  the  system,  while  there 
has  been  in  practice  a  tendency  to  drop  below 
them. 

The  first  step  in  the  evolution  of  our  compul- 
sory system — the  compulsory  teaching  of  the 
children — was  taken,  we  are  expressly  told,  be- 
cause many  parents  were  too  indulgent  and  neg- 
ligent of  their  duty.  The  next  step — compulso- 
ry schools — was  taken  lest  learning  be  buried  in 
the  graves  of  the  fathers;  the  third  step — com-*, 
pulsory certification  of  teachers — grew  out  of  the 
fact  that  the  ea^rly  law  had  been  shamefully  neg- 
lected by  divers  towns  during  the  trying  period 
of  the  Indian  wars. 

When  the  schools  had  suffered  through  the 
Revolutionary  period,  the  law  of  1789  contained 
a  new  compulsory  enactment — compulsory  super- 
vision; and  again  in  1836  when  the  evils  of  the 
district  system  were  at  their  height,  the  office  of 
school  committee  was  established  to  check  their 


266    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

deteriorating  influences.  When  a  new  cause — 
foreign  immigration— had  brought  again  deca- 
dence, the  last  of  the  great  compulsory  enact- 
ments was  made — that  requiring  school  attend- 
ance. 

Thus  the  five  conspicuous  steps  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  compulsory  features  of  our  system — 
compjilsory  teaching,  compulsory  schools,  com- 
pulsory certification  of  teachers,  compulsory  su- 
perintendence, and  compulsory  school  attend- 
ance— were  the  efforts  of  the  State  to  hold  the 
entire  people  up  to  standards  which  some  people 
were  unwilling  to  reach. 

While  this  interposition  of  superior  central 
authority  was  intermittent  and  at  wide  intervals 
of  time,  there  was  a  perpetual  conflict  going  on 
in  the  towns  themselves.  Nowhere  is  the  con- 
servative influence  of  democracy  more  apparent 
than  in  the  history  of  New  England  schools. 
Every  change  in  policy  and  method,  every  im- 
provement in  the  material  condition  or  in  the 
inner  life  of  the  schools,  has  been  met  by  the 
narrow  and  selfish  opposition  of  some  man  or 
men  whose  only  interest  in  civil  affairs  has  been 
to  reduce  taxation.  To  this  open  hostility  of  the 
niggardly  has  been  added  the  inertia  of  the  igno- 
rant, and  the  town  meeting  has  been  the  arena 
where  the  hosts  of  the  Lord  have  contended  with 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  267 

the  Philistines  through  all  the  generations  of 
Massachusetts  history.  Thus  the  town  meetings 
have  been  themselves  among  the  most  potent 
educational  influences.  Progressive  and  zealous 
men,  animated  by  principle,  have  learned  a 
higher  art  than  the  schools  teach — the  art  of  per- 
suading their  fellow-men.  Forced  to  give  a 
reason  for  their  faith,  they  have  enlightened 
themselves  that  they  might  enlighten  others. 

But  all  this  takes  time.  Zealous  reformers 
often  grow  impatient,  and  shallow  critics  babble, 
and  cynics  snarl ;  but  for  all  this  the  progress 
has  been  continuous,  and  in  spite  of  all  that  is 
said  and  thought  to  the  contrary,  intelligent 
observers  know  that  the  schools  of  to-day  are 
not  the  schools  of  fifty  years  ago,  nor  twenty 
years  ago,  nor  ten  years  ago,  nor  five  years 
ago ;  they  are  better  schools  in  everything  that 
makes  a  good  school.  And  they  are  growing 
better:  as  steadily  as  the  grass  grows  in  the 
spring,  or  the  leaves  unfold,  as  surely  and 
steadily  as  time  moves  on,  bringing  new  days 
and  new  months  and  new  years,  so  surely  is  the 
new  school  being  unfolded,  according  to  the  law 
of  democratic  evolution,  by  the  energizing  force 
of  enlightened  public  opinion. 

We  have  seen  this  force  operating  through 

all  the  period  we  have  been  studying.     All  new 
19 


268    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

forms  and  all  reforms  have  been  first  wrought 
out  in  individual  towns  through  the  influence  of 
individual  citizens.  Thence  they  have  spread 
from  town  to  town,  through  that  friendly  rivalry 
which  is  as  powerful  a  motive  in  municipal  as  in 
private  life.  Finally,  when  experience  and  trial 
have  led  to  the  belief  that  what  is  good  for  a 
part  is  good  for  all,  the  Legislature  has  interposed 
and  made  the  practice  general.^x^hus  legislation 
has  ever  followed,  not  led  nor  driven,  and  Massa- 
chusetts has  never  known  the  time  when  a  polit- 
ical party  could  find  capital  in  opposing  the  edu- 
cational policy  which  the  people  have  adopted. 
It  is  this  fact  which  accounts  for  the  stability 
of  the  public-school  system,  rooted  deep  in  the 
intelligent  convictions  of  eight  generations  of 
the  people. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  discover 
most  clearly  the  influence  and  value  to  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Harvard  College.  We  are  fa- 
miliar with  the  sneer  that  early  Massachusetts 
was  priest-ridden,  and  that  Harvard  College  was 
founded  to  make  clergymen,  and  that  the  Latin 
schools  were  only  to  teach  boys  whose  profession 
was  to  be  theology.  It  is  probable  that  as  many 
boys  became  ministers  in  order  to  study  Latin 
as  studied  Latin  to  be  ministers ;  for  there  were 
boys  then  as  now  who  loved  study  for  its  own 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  269 

sake,  and  the  ministry  was  then  the  only  learned 
profession.  But  through  all  our  history  the 
ministers  have  been  more  than  clergymen ;  they 
have  been  social  lights  and  social  leaders.  In 
this  the  college  has  more  than  realized  the  hopes 
of  its  founders,  and  justified  their  benefactions. 

Conspicuous  as  have  been  the  spires  of  the 
country  churches,  so  conspicuous  have  been  the 
ministers,  embodying  and  preserving  the  ancient 
traditions  in  favor  of  learning.  By  their  side 
have  been  the  country  doctor  and  the  country 
lawyer.  In  times  and  places  of  popular  indiffer- 
ence they  have  kept  the  fires  alive.  They  have 
first  of  all  provided  the  best  education  for  their 
own  children.  Their  sons  and  daughters  have 
been  the  shining  lights  of  the  school,  the  acad- 
emy, and  the  college.  Intimately  acquainted 
with  all  the  families,  they  have  known  the  apti- 
tudes of  the  children,  and  they  have  aroused  an 
ambition  for  learning  in  the  hearts  of  a  multi- 
tude of  young  people  who  but  for  their  advice 
or  intercession  might  never  have  been  more  than 
drudges.  In  the  absence  of  other  means,  they 
have  themselves  been  teachers. 

They  have  always  been  the  friends  of  schools ; 
have  stood  for  progress  and  liberal  measures 
in  town  meetings;  have  served  on  school  com- 
mittees, and  by  their  annual  reports  have  edu- 


2Y0    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

cated  the  people  up  to  their  own  standard.  Their 
private  libraries  were  object  lessons,  and  helped 
to  foster  a  reverence  for  books  and  a  taste  for 
reading,  out  of  which  grew  the  early  social 
libraries  and  later  the  free  public  libraries, 
of  which  Massachusetts  has  more  than  all  the 
other  States  combined.  The  influence  of  the 
minister,  the  doctor,  and  the  lawyer,  in  the 
making  of  New  England,  is  a  subject  which  in 
its  fullness  waits  for  a  historian. 

In  the  educational  movements  of  the  last 
forty  years,  by  which  the  school  system  has  be- 
come modernized  and  the  schools  themselves 
have  become  new  creations,  the  colleges  have 
had  little  share.  Indeed,  the  college  influences 
in  many  cases  have  been  wholly  conservative 
and  reactionary.  To  the  normal  schools  and  the 
free  high  schools  distinguished  college  men  have 
been  openly  and  actively  hostile;  to  the  new 
philosophy  underlying  the  more  recent  changes 
they  have  been  indifferent.  In  theory  and  in 
practice  they  have  clung  to  Renaissance  ideals, 
and  they  have  been  singularly  blind  to  the  new 
work  and  new  methods  by  which  the  public 
schools  have  been  seeking  to  adapt  themselves  to 
the  new  social  conditions. 

If  an  educational  system  may  be  judged  by 
iU    fruits,    the    people    of    Massachusetts    have 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  271 

reason  to  think  that  on  the  whole  the  fathers 
built  wisely  and  well.  They  may  believe  that 
the  successive  phases  which  the  system  has  pre- 
sented in  its  development  have  on  the  whole 
been  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
adapted  to  its  requirements. 

This  seems  no  less  true  of  the  more  modern 
than  of  the  more  ancient  forms.  The  active  men 
and  women  of  the  present  generation  were 
trained  in  the  public  schools  as  they  were  modi- 
fied under  the  graded  system,  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  modern  ideals.  It  is  fair  to  look  at 
these  men  and  women  as  products  in  part  of  the 
educational  system,  and  to  measure  its  influence 
by  the  qualities  of  character  which  they  possess, 
and  by  their  success  or  failure. 

While  an  outlook  over  the  face  of  society 
in  its  varied  relations  and  activities  may  not  at 
every  point  afford  the  utmost  satisfaction — while, 
indeed,  there  may  be  much  to  deplore — yet  as  be- 
tween the  optimist  and  the  pessimist  the  optimist 
seems  to  have  the  best  of  it.  Whether  we  turn 
our  glass  toward  the  higher  levels  of  religion 
and  morals  and  manners,  or  lower  to  the  material 
side  of  life,  or  toward  the  conduct  of  public  af- 
fairs, the  forces  which  have  been  at  work  to 
prepare  the  generation  for  its  duties  and  its  re- 
sponsibilities seem  to  have  done  their  work  well. 


272    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

If  there  is  less  of  intension  in  the  religions 
life  and  work  of  men  and  women,  there  is  more 
of  extension.  If  there  is  less  of  theological 
thinking  there  is  more  of  Christlike  activity  ;  so 
that  no  great  harm  has  come  from  leaving  the 
catechism  out  of  the  schools.  Society  is  as 
chaste,  as  temperate,  as  honest  as  it  has  been  at 
any  period  in  our  history.  There  is  more  of 
courtesy  and  less  of  boorishness. 

The  increase  of  wealth  and  its  wide  distribu- 
tion, whereby  the  people  are  better  housed  and 
better  clothed  and  better  fed,  testify  to  the  in- 
dustry and  frugality  and  business  enterprise 
of  the  people,  while  the  magnitude  of  busi- 
ness undertakings,  of  financial  operations  and 
their  success  show  that  business  integrity,  and 
fidelity  to  trust  have  been  equal  to  the  increas- 
ing strain  upon  them. 

And,  finally,  in  spite  of  all  that  good  men  de- 
plore in  the  conduct  of  civil  and  political  affairs, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether — taking  the  com- 
plexity of  modern  civilization  into  account — the 
administration  of  public  affairs,  in  the  making, 
the  interpreting,  and  the  execution  of  law,  is  not 
on  the  whole  as  wise  and  as  honest  as  at  any 
earlier  period  of  the  history  of  our  State.  Nor  is 
there  less  affection  for  country  or  devotion  to 
the  flag. 


r 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  273 

That  the  nearer  approach  to  modern  ideals 
which  the  schools  are  now  making  will  not  be 
less  fruitful  of  good,  we  may  confidently  hope, 
for  the  work  is  based  on  an  ever-increasing 
knowledge  of  child  nature  and  a  more  profound 
study  of  education  as  a  science.  But  in  judging 
of  the  present  and  in  forecasting  the  future,  we 
ought  always  to  have  in  mind  the  limitations 
under  which  the  schools  are  doing  their  work. 
The  results  which  the  system  ought  to  produce, 
presuppose  children  of  an  average  intelligence 
and  average  health,  in  regular  attendance  upon 
schools  in  suitable  buildings,  under  intelligent 
and  skillful  teachers,  well  organized  and  wisely 
directed. 

But  some  of  these  conditions  are  often  want- 
ing. There  are  many  dull  children  and  stupid 
children — multitudes  with  no  intelligent  ancestry 
back  of  them,  no  heredity  in  their  favor ;  chil- 
dren who,  like  Mr.  Pullet  in  Adam  Bede,  have  a 
great  natural  capacity  for  ignorance.  There  are 
puny  children,  ill-nurtured  children,  sickly  chil- 
dren, while  epidemics  of  children's  diseases  deci- 
mate whole  schools  every  year. 

The  physical  conditions  under  which  the 
work  is  attempted  are  often  most  unfavorable. 
Schoolhouses — most  of  the  old  ones — are  badly 
heated,  badly  lighted,  and  not  ventilated  at  all. 


274    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  seats,  even  the  best  modern  ones,  have  no 
relation  in  form  or  size  to  the  children  who  are 
to  occupy  them. 

Much  might  be  done  in  spite  of  these  hin- 
drances, if  the  children  who  ought  to  be  at 
school  were  always  there,  but  on  the  average 
every  child  is  absent  one  day  in  ten ;  and  inas- 
much as  the  sound  bright  children  from  good 
homes  are  more  regular  than  the  average,  by  so 
much  are  the  weak  and  the  neglected  more  fre- 
quently absent. 

The  organization  of  most  of  the  schools  is 
such  as  to  make  ideal  teaching  and  training  im- 
possible. The  classes  are  too  large  by  half ;  the 
wonder  is  that  teachers  accomplish  anything 
with  the  swarms  of  little  ones  who  crowd  the 
primary  schools,  or  with  the  fifty  or  more  who 
load  the  upper  grades. 

The  teaching  force,  while  better  than  ever 
before  and.  constantly  improving,  is  still  far  from 
being  what  ideal  conditions  would  require. 
Many  teachers  are  too  young,  too  inexperienced 
in  life,  with  no  sense  of  its  responsibilities  and 
no  comprehension  of  its  relations.  Many  are  too 
old :  elasticity  all  gone ;  no  sympathy  with  child- 
hood; no  power  of  adaptation.  Some  are  igno- 
rant, having  had  no  adequate  scholastic  or  pro- 
fessional training — worked  into  the  schools  in 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  275 

the  absence  of  any  effective  means  of  barring 
them  out. 

The  best  teachers  are  sometimes  hampered  by 
ill-constructed  courses  of  study,  or  by  arbitrary 
restrictions  in  discipline,  or  by  ignorant  and 
crotchety  school  officials ;  most  often  by  systems 
of  examination  which  force  them  into  paths 
that  are  repugnant  alike  to  their  feelings  and 
their  judgment. 

That  public  sentiment  which  in  the  fathers 
led  them  to  Jay  the  foundations  of  the  school 
system  so  broad  and  so  substantial,  which  kept 
schools  and  colleges  alive  through  periods  of 
darkness  and  disaster,  which  adapted  them  by 
new  forms  for  changing  conditions  of  social  life 
— the  moving  school,  the  district  school,  the 
academy,  the  graded  school,  the  free  high  school 
— that  public  sentiment  must  be  relied  on  to  re- 
duce these  limitations  to  a  minimum. 

More  generous  appropriations  of  money  are 
needed,  to  provide  everywhere  commodious  and 
comfortable  and  attractive  schoolhouses ;  to 
equip  them  with  all  needed  apparatus,  cabinets, 
and  libraries  ;  to  increase  the  number  of  teachers 
so  that  the  size  of  classes  may  be  reduced — so 
that  children  may  be  taught  in  squads  rather 
than  in  battalions  and  brigades. 

To  this  same  enlightened  public  sentiment 


276    MASSACHUSETTS  PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

we  must  look  for  a  system  of  selecting  teach- 
ers w^hich  will  keep  out  the  most  incompetent; 
which  will  put  a  premium  on  capacity  and  pro- 
fessional training;  which  will  neither  induct 
teachers  into  office  nor  keep  them  there  for  per- 
sonal and  political  ends,  nor  sacrifice  the  welfare 
of  the  children  to  the  necessities  of  the  superan- 
nuated and  the  indigent.  And,  lastly,  public 
sentiment  among  those  who  have  the  schools  in 
charge  must  devise  some  way  by  which  all  grades 
of  schools,  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  college, 
shall  be  so  correlated  that  there  shall  be  a 
straight  and  open  pathway  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest — with  no  hurdles  to  jump  over  and 
no  hoops  to  jump  through — along  which  free- 
acting  children  may  be  led  by  teachers  acting 
freely  within  the  necessary  limits  of  relativity. 

The  process  of  evolution  has  in  it  necessarily 
an  element  of  sadness.  When  old  things  pass 
away,  we  miss  them  even  if  we  would  not  have 
them  stay.  The  old,  familiar  ways — our  roots 
are  in  them,  and  change  means  wrenching.  We 
reverence  "  use  and  wont."  Some  of  us  perhaps 
are  looking  back  to  the  district  school  with  jeal- 
ous fondness;  to  the  academy  and  to  the  older 
days  at  college,  or  to  a  time  when  school  work 
and  school  discipline  were  more  severe  and  for- 
mal.    Perhaps  even  now,  in  thought,  we  are 


THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  277 

querying  if  the  new  be  really  better,  and  depre- 
cating any  new  departure. 

We  sympathize  perhaps  with  Arthur's  lonely 
knight  standing  by  the  unknown  sea,  the  goodly 
fellowship  all  ended,  and  the  phantom  barge 
about  to  bear  away  his  king  : 

"  Ah,  my  lord  Arthur,  whither  shall  I  go  f 
For  now  I  see  the  true  old  times  are  dead, 
When  every  morning  brought  a  noble  chance, 
And  every  chance  brought  out  a  noble  knight." 

Listen  to  Arthur's  answer : 

"  The  old  order  cha!!|peth,  yielding  place  to  new. 
And  God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 


INDEX. 


Abbott  Seminary,  founding  of, 
133. 

Academies,  changes  in,  200 ;  de- 

.  cline  of,  200 ;  distribution  of, 
121;  founding  of,  118;  legis- 
lative report  on,  120;  num- 
ber of,  121 ;  origin  of  name, 
119;  purpose  of;  122;  results 
of,  124,  128 :  State  aid  for, 
120;  studies  in,  123 ;  teachers 
in,  126. 

Adams,  Samuel,  warning  con- 
cerning academies,  128. 

Agricultural  College,  227. 

American  First  Class  Book,  100. 

American  Institute  of  Instruc- 
tion founded,  262. 

American  Preceptor,  100. 

Angle,  used  for  district,  77. 

Apportionment  of  school  money 
among  districts,  97. 

Appropriations  for  public 
schools  in  1892,  234. 

Arithmetic,  Colburn's,  146, 246 ; 
Hodder's,  102 ;  in  the  district 
schools,  102 ;  Pike's,  102. 

Attendance,  school,  made  com- 
pulsory, 210, 212 ;  subsequent 
legislation,  213. . 


Barre,  normal  school  in,  173. 

Bible,  displaced,  100;  daily 
reading  of,  required  by  law, 
232 ;  used  as  reading  book,  58. 

Billerica,  law  of  1642  enforced 
in,  10. 

Boarding  around,  108. 

Board  of  Education,  agents  of, 
261 ;  composition  of,  155 ; 
duties  of,  156;  established, 
155 ;  influence  of,  260 ;  mem- 
bers of,  260;  secretary  of, 
duties,  156. 

Boston,  English  High  School  in, 
145,  196 ;  first  school  record, 
1 ;  grammar  school  in,  sup- 
port of,  48 ;  grammar  schools 
'  in,  in  1823,  192;  primary 
schools  in,  established,  143. 

Bridgewater,  normal  school  in, 
172. 

Brooks,  Rev.  Charles,  advocates 
normal  schools,  170. 

Cambridge,  grading  in,  192; 
grammar  school  in,  49. 

Carter,  James  G.,  plan  for  sem- 
inary for  teachers,  169 ;  work 
of,  for  public  schools,  147. 


(279) 


280 


INDEX. 


Certification  of  teachers,  first 
required,  78. 

Chantry  schools,  23. 

Charlestown,  grammar  school 
in,  49. 

Cheever,  Ezekiel,  author  of  Ac- 
cidence, 58 ;  character  of,  62 ; 
eulogy  of,  by  Cotton  Mather, 
62. 

Children,  employment  of,  in 
England,  214 ;  laws  of  Mas- 
sachusetts concerning,  216. 

Colburn's  Arithmetic,  146, 246. 

Colleges,  aided  by  State,  226; 
relation  of,  to  modern  schools, 
270. 

Columbian  Orator,  100. 

Combe,  George,  influence  of, 
168,  246. 

Compulsory  attendance  laws, 
date  of,  212 ;  introduce  no 
new  principle,  210. 

Compulsory  system  of  Massa- 
chusetts, development  of, 
265;  judged  by  its  fruits, 
271. 

Constitution  of  Massachusetts, 
education  in,  82. 

Controversy  of  Horace  Mann 
with  schoolmasters,  181. 

Cotton,  John,  English  home  of, 
45. 

Cousin's  Reports,  influence  of, 
169. 

Dame  schools,  in  England,  30 ; 
in  Massachusetts,  54;  made 
public,  79,  191. 


Dedham,  first  school  in,  51. 

De  Tocqueville,  idea  of  New 
England  towns,  47. 

District  schools,  books  used  in, 
99,  101;  discipline  in,  109; 
houses,  94,  95;  length  of 
term  in,  98 ;  libraries  in,  174 ; 
studies  in,  99,  105;  teachers 
in,  107,  108;  work  of ,  110. 

District  system,  abolition  of, 
205 ;  decline  of,  202  ;  evils  of, 
114;  opposition  to,  204. 

Dorchester,  grammar  school  in, 
49. 

Drawing,  an  optional  study, 
252 ;  required,  252. 

Dudley,  Joseph,  English  home 
of,  45. 

Dummer  Academy,  118,  119. 

Dwight,  Edmund,  aid  in  found- 
ing normal  schools,  170 :  aids 
teachers'  institutes,  173, 

Emerson,  Rev.  Joseph,  work  of, 
in  education  of  girls,  132. 

Employment  of  children  in 
England,  reports  on,  214; 
laws  of  Massachusetts  con- 
cerning, 216. 

Endicott,  John,  English  home 
of,  45. 

England,  early  education  in, 
21. 

Evening  high  schools  required 
by  law,  220. 

Evening  schools,  charitable, 
218;  public,  authorized  by 
law,  219;  improvements  in, 


INDEX. 


281 


219;    number    of,    220;   re- 
quired, 219. 
Examination,  first  written,  in 
Boston,  192. 

Fellenberg,  at  Hofwyl,  140. 
Free  text-books,  223. 
Froebel,  influence  of,  in  public 
schools,  254. 

Germany,  schools  established 
in,  20. 

Girls,  education  of,  colleges  for, 
228;  early  limits,  130;  ex- 
tended after  the  Revolution, 
131 ;  in  district  schools,  130 ; 
seminaries  for,  132. 

Grading  of  schools,  foreshad- 
owings  of,  188 ;  in  Cambridge, 
192 ;  in  Boston,  in  grammar 
schools,  192;  in  primary 
schools,  193;  recommended 
by  Horace  Mann,  191. 

Grammar  in  the  district  schools, 
105. 

Grammar  schools,  English,  en- 
dowment of,  25,  26 ;  number 
of,  25 ;  patronage  of,  37 ;  re- 
ligious nature  of,  30 ;  studies 
in,  29 ;  support  of,  28 ;  teach- 
ers in,  31 ;  early,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, disappearance  of, 
115;  failure  to  support,  76; 
made  moving  schools,  76; 
number  of,  diminished  by 
law  of  1789,  85 ;  support  of, 
48 ;  teachers,  78 ;  in  Boston, 
organization  in  1823,  192. 


Harvard  College,  bequest  to  by, 
John  Harvard,  6;  first  ap- 
propriation for,  6 ;  influence 
of,  238 ;  morals  in,  66 ;  presi- 
dent of,  226;  requirements 
for  admission,  59,  1277  i 
rated  from  State,  226 ;  stud- 
ies in,  64,  127. 

High  schools,  established  by 
law,  197;  evening,  220;  in 
Boston  first,  196 ;  increase  of, 
199 ;  influence  of,  201 ;  num- 
ber of,  199;  opposition  to, 
197. 

Holland,  character  of  schools 
in,  36 ;  schools  established  in, 
20. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  English  home 
of,  45. 

Hornbook  described,  55. 

Industrial  education,  author- 
ized, 253 ;  extent  of,  254. 

Industrial  School  for  Girls,  225. 

Infant-school  movement,  in 
Europe,  136;  in  United 
States,  141. 

Institute  of  Technology,  227. 

Ipswich,  grammar  school  in,  50, 

Jacotot,  at  Louvain,  140 ;  meth- 
od used  in  Philadelphia,  142. 

Kindergarten,  first  in  Boston, 
255 ;  influence  of,  on  primary 
schools,  256 ;  Miss  Peabody's 
work  for,  255;  Mrs.  Shaw*s 
support  of,  255;  public,  in 


282 


INDEX. 


Boston,  256 ;   relation  of,  to 
drawing,  257 ;  relation  of,  to 
manual  training,  258. 
King  Philip's  war,  effects  of, 

72. 

Lancaster,  Joseph,  founds  mon- 
itorial schools,  137. 

Laws,  early  school,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 1642,  analysis  of, 
14 ;  enforcement  of,  10 ;  sub- 
stance of,  8 ;  of  1647,  analysis 
of,  14;  text  of,  12. 

Leicester  Academy  founded, 
120. 

Lexington,  normal  school  in, 
172. 

Libraries  in  school  districts, 
174. 

Limitations  on  public  school 
work,  273. 

Luther,  Martin,  address  of,  17. 

Lyman  School  for  Boys,  225. 

Lyon,  Mary,  work  of,  in  educa- 
tion of  girls,  133. 

r  Mann,  Horace,  choice  of,  as  Sec- 
retary of  Board  of  Education, 
157 ;  controversy  with  school- 
masters, 181 :  conventions 
held  by,  162, 176 ;  lectures  by, 
162 ;  opposes  district  system, 
202 ;  opposition  to,  by  relig- 
ious opponents,  180 ;  by  teacTi- 
ers,  181 ;  in  Legislature,  177; 
qualifications  of ,  157;  reports 
of,  165 ;  retirement  of,  174. 
Manual  labor  schools,  at  Hof- 


wyl,  140;  in  United  States, 
142. 

Massachusetts,  changes  in,  in- 
dustrial, 187 ;  factory  system 
in,  189,  214. 

Massachusetts  Teachers'  Asso- 
ciation founded,  183. 

Mechanics'  institutes,  139. 

Ministers,  influence  of,  269 ;  not 
to  be  schoolmasters,  70;  re- 
lation of,  to  early  schools,  64. 

Modern  school,  differs  from 
earlier  schools,  236;  influ- 
ences producing,  242 ;  meth- 
ods in,  241 ;  Pestalozzianism 
in,  243;  purpose  of,  237; 
spirit  of,  239 ;  work  of,  240. 

Money,  school,  apportioned 
among  districts,  97 ;  not  to  be 
used  for  sectarian  schools, 
232. 

Monitorial  schools,  in  Boston, 
146;  in  Europe,  137;  in 
United  States,  141 ;  work  of, 
138. 

Morals,  instruction  in,  legal 
provision  for,  87. 

Moving  schools,  75. 

Neef,  Joseph,  142. 
Newburyport,  early  records  of, 

151 ;  primary  school  for  girls 

in,  143. 
Nonattendance  at  school,  211. 
Normal  Art  School    founded, 

253. 
Normal  schools,  advocated,  169 ; 

aided  by  D wight,  170 ;  estab- 


INDEX. 


283 


lished,  171 ;  influence  of,  247 ; 
relation  of  Horace  Mann  to, 
172. 

Oswego,  normal  school  in,  250. 

Parochial  schools,  232. 

Pestalozzi,  at  Iverdun,  140 ;  in- 
fluence of,  in  modern  schools, 
243. 

Phillips  Academy,  discipline  in, 
126 ;  founding  of,  119. 

Pike's  Arithmetic,  102. 

Plymouth  colony,  schoollegis- 
lation  in,  68. 

Pormort,  Philemon,  character 
of,  •  61 ;  invited  to  become 
teacher,  1. 

Primary  schools  in  Boston,  es- 
tablished, 143. 

Primer,  New  England,  descrip- 
tion of,  56;  displaced  by 
Spelling  Book,  99. 

Private  schools,  decline  of,  200 ; 
expense  of,   129;    promoted 

»by  academies,  129 ;  teachers 
of,  to  be  approved  by  select- 
men, 80,  81. 
Prudential  committees  author- 
ized by  law,  92. 
Psalter,  displaced  by  Spelling 
Book,  99 ;  used  as  a  reading 
book,  58. 

Reading  in  school,  Bible  dis- 
placed by  reading  books,  99 ; 
methods    of    teaching    dis- 
cussed by  Horace  Mann,  167. 
20 


Roxbury,  grammar  school  in, 
50,  53. 

Salem,  grammar  school  in,  50 ; 
normal  school  in,  249. 

School  committee,  choice  of 
voluntary,  150 ;  compensa- 
tion of,  167,  205 ;  neglect  of 
duties  by,  167 ;  opposition  to, 
152;  required  by  law,  149; 
formal  visits  by,  151. 

School  districts,  authorized  by 
law,  84 ;  creation  of,  77 ;  em- 
powered to  choose  prudential 
committee,  92 ;  empowered  to 
tax,  91 ;  limitations  on,  93 ; 
made  corporations,  92. 

School  fund,  establishment  of, 
154. 

Schoolhouses,  bad  condition 
of,  207;  improvement  in, 
208 ;  in  districts,  description 
of.  95  ;  report  on,  by  Horace 
Mann,  166. 

School  law,  of  1647, 12 ;  of  1789, 
83 ;  of  1824  and  1826,  149. 

Schoolmasters,  exemption  of, 
from  public  burdens,  78. 

Schools,  in  Holland,  20,  37; 
in  New  Amsterdam,  38. 

Schools  in  Massachusetts  be- 
fore the  Revolution,  became 
free,  when,  51 ;  dame  schools, 
54;  elementary,  53;  fuel  in, 
60 ;  grammar  school,  first,  53 ; 
in  small  towns,  67;  public, 
46;  supervision  of,  64;  sup- 
port of,  48;  teachers,61,78,81. 


284: 


INDEX. 


School  spirit,  decline  of  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  69 ;  main- 
tained by  new  population, 
234;  revival  of,  by  Horace 
Mann,' 175. 

Scotland,  decline  of  education 
in,  147;  schools  established 
in,  20. 

Secretary  of  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, choice  of  Horace  Mann, 
157 ;  duties  of,  156. 

Sectarian  schools,  public  money 
not  to  be  used  for,  232. 

Seminaries  for  girls,  132. 

Settlements,  increase  of,  after 
Indian  wars,  74. 

Smith,  Walter,  made  art  direct- 
or, 253. 

Spelling  in  the  district  schools, 
105. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  influence  of, 
244. 

Squadron,  used  for  district,  77. 

Studies  in  common  schools,  83 ; 
in  dame  schools,  54 ;  in  gram- 
mar schools,  53, 240 ;  in  Har- 
vard College,  64. 

Superintendents  of  schools,  au- 
thorized in  Massachusetts, 
222 ;  first  in  Providence,  220 ; 
in  Boston,  222;  in  Spring- 
field, 222;  legislation  con- 
cerning, 222;  State  aid  for, 
222. 

Supervision  of  schools,  efforts 
of  Horace  Mann  to  improve, 


167;  general  review  of,  149; 
professional,  220 ;  required 
by  law  of  1789,  150. 

Taxation  for  school  support 
made  compulsory,  when,  153. 

Teachers,  associations  of,  2'62 ; 
certificated,  78;  exemptions 
of,  78;  in  district  schools, 
106;  in  English  grammar 
schepls,  31 ;  in  grammar 
schools  in  Massachusetts,  61 ; 
qualifications  of,  in  district 
schools,  108 ;  wages  of  in  dis^ 
trict  schools,  107. 

Teachers'  institutes,  173. 

Technical  schools,  227. 

Text-books,  free,  224. 

Truancy,  extent  of,  217 ;  legis- 
lation against,  217. 

Wages  of  teachers,  in  district 
schools,  107 ;  increase  in,  174. 

Wilderspin,  Samuel,  136. 

Willard,  Emma,  work  of,  in  ed- 
ucation of  girls,  132. 

Winthrop,  John,  English  home 
of,  45. 

Women,  employed  as  teachers, 
79;  illiteracy  of,  75;  in  col- 
leges, 228 ;  in  summer  schools, 
107. 

Woodbridge,  William,  work  of, 
in  education  of  girls,  132. 

Worcester,  normal  school  in, 
249. 


14  DAY  USE 

RITURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


It* AN  DEPT. 


JAN  18  1980 


LD  21A-60m-3,'65 
(F2336sl0)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB  Asni 


'^A*- 


^5*V 


c 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


